[matt_16288]

http://business.scotsman.com/technol...m?id=799272006

[NeeJam]

yup i read this yesterday and it was on the news last night - there planning on sacking 400 people to cut costs - and the £15 billino is not including the sale of that japense investment that went wrong where they lost a further £6billion on.

[YPAL]

Don't forget though that they did make over £6 billion in free cash and have increased shareholder returns.

[soccer-boy]

This story is somewhat complicated. It seems really bad, but in fact they have had a good year.

[nado]

Vodafone *loose* nearly £15 billion

I hope they can tighten things up

I think vodafone are making a killing here in Aus. They tend to target the younger market (12-25), do they do that in the US as well?

[Jimmye]

Well I heard from sources the reason why they had to tell the market about this is because they had to revaluate a company the brought at the begging on the mobile phone boom I forgot the name of the company but it cost them 100 billion or something along those lines and now that the mobile phone industry isn’t booming they have to show it in their financial report or something like that.

[YPAL]

Yes the bought Mannesmann of Germany for £112 billion in February 2000, it was and still is the largest takeover in history. Paid for mainly in Vodafone stock as it was the 3rd most valuable company in the world at the time. It has been forced to write down £28 billlion worth of goodwill from the deal. Hence the loses.

If you look at the figures though they are amazing, the company operates in only 27 countries yet has 170 million customers. It turnover is nearlly £50 billion and it makes a gross profit of nearlly £20 billion. People talk for nearlly 200 billion minutes a year on their network.