This has been on the cards for some time, and has been posted on here several times only
A report in April this year by Credit Suisse advises that sale of the Business Division could be a possibility.
I haven't see the article in the times but knowing lazy journos they are probably reporting on something that was issued 4 months ago.
Quote:
VMED could unlock at least $1/share by selling its business division. Our assumptions are
that the business division could be sold at 7.0x EV/EBITDA, the business would be pulled
out of VMED at 5.0x EBITDA, the buyer would have a 15% margin in the business (vs
VMED’s 40% margin), and 25% of revenue would come back to Virgin through a network
contract with the buyer. There is additional upside from network revenue growth as the
buyer of the asset grows the business and also if the deal involves a broader network
relationship whereby VMED would become a tier 1 partner. The network contract would be
essential to the deal because the business operations leverage the same network as the
consumer business and, therefore, the physical network could not be separated and sold
with the business division. We view the most obvious potential acquirors of this asset as
Cable & Wireless and Thus.
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