Verizon has finally sent Vodafone back to Britain.
The Gotham-based telecom giant detailed terms of its $130 billion stake purchase, ending a 14-year partnership that was often marked by squabbling.
The cash-and-stock deal — the third-largest in world history — will transfer Vodafone’s 45-percent stake in Verizon Wireless to its namesake company, the nation’s largest mobile carrier.
Vodafone will get $58.9 billion in cash, $60.2 billion in Verizon stock, and an additional $11 billion from smaller transactions in a deal set to close in the first quarter of 2014.
The acquisition will give Verizon full access to the wireless unit’s profits as competition from rival AT&T continues to escalate. The UK-based telecom, meanwhile, is expected to issue a massive dividend to shareholders and use the rest of the cash hoard to get a leg up on rivals in Europe.
The deal ends a fractious relationship between the goliaths, which frequently had fought over Verizon Wireless’ cash and who would ultimately own the profitable carrier.
Talks heated up this summer as Verizon showed willingness to up an earlier bid of $100 billion amid concerns about its own declining stock price and the health of the debt markets, according to reports.
Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam yesterday told Reuters he and Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao realized they were close to a deal after they spent the morning together in a hotel in San Francisco, chatting while on exercise bikes in the gym and later over breakfast.
The deal is expected to increase Verizon’s earnings per share by 10 percent. Still, the pricey acquisition could tie its hands in the near term should other targets surface, analysts said.
Verizon has also managed to raise one of the largest ever financing packages at $60 billion, financed by Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley. Goldman Sachs and UBS advised Vodafone.