Vodafone and Three merger expected to be announced on Friday

Vodafone and Three will announced their marriage in less than 48 hours according to Reuters, creating a network with 27 million customers.

The new merged company, expected to be announced on Friday will be 51 per cent owned by by Vodafone and 49 per cent owned by Hutchison. Analysts say it wil be worth around £15 billion and will be be bigger than BT and Virgin Media O2, owned by the Spanish Telefonica, and Liberty Global.

The announcement of the merger comes hard on the heels of Vodafone’s CEO Margherita Della Valle’s (below)  admission it faces a painted a challenging future and a need to slash jobs.

“The merger is critical for the company in light of its objectives around building the infrastructure of the future to help catalyse the digital economy. That entails significant investment in 5G roll out and expensive future-proofing projects, like the laying out of undersea internet cables which traverse areas of high geopolitical tensions”. said Alexandra Brodie, telecoms partner at the law firm Gowling WLG