Vodafone facing £28bn asset writedown
Assets at mobile phone giant massively overvalued
Vodafone has warned investors that its assets are currently overvalued and
expects to write them down by between £23bn and £28bn.
This, the company said, would mainly affect its German operations
acquired following its takeover of Mannesmann in 2000.
At the time, the Vodafone-Mannesmann deal was the biggest-ever corporate
takeover.
The mobile phone company said it was also facing a slowdown in revenue
growth.
Revenue growth is expected to slow to between 5% and 6.5% in the year to
March 2007, against forecasts of 6% to 9% for 2006.
The slowdown was blamed on increased competition and tougher regulations on
how much mobile phones can charge each other.