Latest news with #Vodafone
Reuters
6 hours ago
- Business
- Reuters
Telecom Italia in talks with banks to sell 1 bln euro state credit, say sources
MILAN, June 20 (Reuters) - Telecom Italia (TIM) ( opens new tab is in advanced talks with banks to sell a 1 billion euro ($1.2 billion) state credit the phone group expects to be able to cash in from the government after a prolonged legal dispute, two sources told Reuters. TIM and Rome have been locked in a legal battle over a license fee TIM was obligated to pay to the state in 1998, the year after the telecoms sector was deregulated. TIM scored a victory last year when a Rome appeals court ordered the Italian government to give TIM back the original licence fee, worth just over 500 million euros, a figure that has since doubled due to accrued interests. The government has appealed the decision in front of Italy's top court. Pending the top court's ruling, TIM is in talks with UniCredit ( opens new tab and Santander ( opens new tab to get financing against the expected 1 billion euro refund from the government, the people said. Such a form of financing, whereby a company raises cash from banks by selling them a claim, typically invoices, at a discount to the claim's nominal value, is called factoring. In a similar case to TIM's, the top court has ruled in favour of Vodafone (VOD.L), opens new tab. In any case, were the final court decision to be against TIM, the company would just return the banks the cash they have lent it plus any interest that has matured, the people said. That would be no different than repaying ordinary bank debt. TIM, UniCredit and Santander all declined to comment. Italy's top court last month delayed its final decision over the case, saying further checks were needed to establish whether TIM's initial claim was filed with the correct court. A hearing on the matter is expected next week. ($1 = 0.8632 euros)
Business Insider
6 hours ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Citi Keeps Their Hold Rating on Vodafone (VOD)
Citi analyst Carl Murdock Smith maintained a Hold rating on Vodafone (VOD – Research Report) today and set a price target of £0.70. The company's shares closed yesterday at p75.92. Confident Investing Starts Here: Easily unpack a company's performance with TipRanks' new KPI Data for smart investment decisions Receive undervalued, market resilient stocks right to your inbox with TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter Murdock Smith covers the Communication Services sector, focusing on stocks such as Vodafone, BT Group plc, and Liberty Global A. According to TipRanks, Murdock Smith has an average return of 4.6% and a 55.42% success rate on recommended stocks. The word on The Street in general, suggests a Hold analyst consensus rating for Vodafone with a p83.86 average price target, representing a 10.46% upside. In a report released on June 16, UBS also maintained a Hold rating on the stock with a £0.72 price target. The company has a one-year high of p79.50 and a one-year low of p62.40. Currently, Vodafone has an average volume of 102.4M. Based on the recent corporate insider activity of 42 insiders, corporate insider sentiment is positive on the stock. This means that over the past quarter there has been an increase of insiders buying their shares of VOD in relation to earlier this year.
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘We get to press pause on real life' – why Glastonbury is the ultimate friends holiday
One morning at Glastonbury's Stone Circle, my friend AJ pointed towards a crowd of revellers and said 'Dalai Lama'. I laughed thinking it was some kind of offbeat joke. 'No,' he said, 'it's the actual Dalai Lama.' 'Sure,' I said. I never even turned around, it seemed simply too far-fetched that he would be at Glastonbury festival. The joke was on me though because it was the Dalai Lama. He was there meeting festivalgoers ahead of his speech later that morning. This is the anecdote I use to illustrate to people who've never been before why it feels as if anything might happen at Glastonbury festival. 'It was the actual Dalai literal Lama. At 6am. In a field!!' They're usually backing away slowly at this point. Unexpected encounters, memorable weather and meeting up with old friends are just a few of the reasons my love of Glastonbury has only grown over the years. We've gone from arranging to meet up under a comedy sign to using the Official Glastonbury app, powered by Vodafone, to share everything from lineups to where to find the best bagels. Glastonbury has been written about, filmed, mythologised, tweeted, TikToked and think-pieced to the point that every sentiment you reach for to describe how it makes you feel ends up sounding like a cliche. It simply can't be helped. It is all the things people say: a ritual, a reunion, a sacred space where we remember who we once were and honour who we've become (and yes, also a fun, strange party in a field), so forgive me if I start to sound like a cliche because for me and my friends, the annual pilgrimage to Worthy Farm has become sacrosanct. The year of the Dalai Lama was 2015, when we first made it a tradition. It wasn't my first Glastonbury but that year about 25 of us got tickets – all friends from university who'd dispersed to different parts of the country after graduating and who were giddy to be reunited, finally. A few of us – my closest group and I – pooled £25 each and bought a tent off eBay; it was weighty, ancient and pitching it required the building knowhow of a trained architect and the patience of a monk. Ten years on, though, it has seen us through a lot. It proved a haven in particular in 2016, the year of wild, torrential, biblical rain – if a tight fit. Our designated early arrivers had stomped through a sea of mud to reach our favoured site with it on their shoulders like a coffin. It was also the year when the Brexit results were announced. I was awoken on Friday morning by my friend Jamie's plaintive howls of: 'We're out, we're out. The pound has crashed and David Cameron's resigning.' I remember sitting on the hill behind the Park stage during one of the brief pauses in the rain, looking out across the whole site, that classic view – the Ribbon Tower, the flags, the tents scattered like old confetti. We were in our mid-20s, had entered the jobs market in the middle of the great recession and were only just starting to feel that our careers might actually go somewhere. At least we're here, we kept saying. At least we have this. That night – soaked, cold, tempted to burrow into the tent and stay there – we ventured out to see Stormzy then Kano headline the Sonic stage in Silver Hayes. It was such a big performance, defiant, full of bravado, we couldn't help but feel a renewed optimism. We hugged and screamed and danced. I left the set thinking that I would pay whatever it took, a hundred times over, to keep convening in this field, with these people, for as long as I possibly could. And, mostly, we have. Over time, we've celebrated engagements there, house purchases, new jobs. We celebrated friends moving countries, and coming back. We celebrated surviving a global pandemic. Pressing pause on real life, for those few days, we get to live in a technicolour bubble where joy is easy and time bends. We laugh more. We listen harder. We dance like idiots. We cry when the sun sets behind the Pyramid stage on Sunday. We remember that, beneath the bills and burnout, we are still the same people who sang through the thunderstorms, arms flung around each other. Connecting friends to the best of British summerVodafone has been connecting people to the places and things they love since 1984 – that's why it is The Nation's Network. Vodafone will make sure friends stay connected during their time at the festival by powering the Official Glastonbury app, with features including live location sharing, reliable coverage and free Connect & Charge facilities. In a new highlight for 2025, the app will even measure ticketholders' step counts so that friends can compare who has covered the most ground. And Vodafone is upping the ante by matching the average festival-goer's step count with donations of sims (to a max of 75,000) through its programme. As children have come along we've managed to incorporate them to a degree: in 2023, for instance, when my friend Sophie was pregnant we turned her 12-week ultrasound scan into a flag. It had the words MEET US AT THE FETUS written across the bottom. The flag hung above our tent all weekend like a beacon of absurdity and love. (We've stopped short at bringing any of them along because, quite frankly, I don't think any of us are brave enough.) Last year, I had a three-month-old at home and watched from my sofa but I'm back this year. A little older, a little softer, just as devoted. I'll be there with my boyfriend, my SPF50, Loop earplugs and the mild sense of dread that comes with being in your mid-30s and about to spend four nights on an inflatable mattress. We've also downloaded the Official Glastonbury app and shared our lineups. The location-sharing feature might actually save us this year – no more frantic texts saying 'by a flag' or 'left of the big speaker' while squinting at a man in glitter hot pants who looks vaguely like your friend from behind. There's something comforting about that – about being able to stay connected without stepping outside of the bubble. About knowing where your people are, even in the chaos. Because that's what Glastonbury has always meant to us: not the headliners, not the hype, but the simple fact of being together, in a field, once a year. Still showing up. Still choosing each other. And yes, I know, it's all a bit of a cliche. But like most cliches, it only became one because it's true. Vodafone, connecting you to Glastonbury this summerThe Official Glastonbury 2025 app is available now! Download the free app, powered by Vodafone
Tom's Guide
11 hours ago
- Business
- Tom's Guide
Best EOFY telco deals: Optus, Vodafone and Telstra are slashing prices on phones, plans and more
With the end of financial year rapidly approaching, now is a great time to take advantage of the EOFY sales happening at Australia's major telcos. Carriers like Optus, Vodafone and Telstra are currently offering great deals on phone plans, along with discounts on handsets, smartwatches and more. We've taken the liberty of rounding up the best EOFY telco deals you can get right now by carrier, with big savings up for grabs — especially if you're willing to stay connected to an eligible plan for 24 or 36 months. Of course, these deals will end as soon as the new financial year begins on July 1, so don't wait too long to snag a bargain if you see one! Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Save AU$400 and get a free Galaxy Watch 7 Want to get your hands on the best phone in the world right now at a huge discount, and get a free smartwatch while you're at it? This deal from Optus offers just that, with a AU$400 discount on the phone and a free Galaxy Watch 7 for those willing to stay connected to an eligible Optus phone plan for 24 or 36 months. That's AU$1,098 in value! T&Cs apply. Get 20% off Small and Medium SIM plans for 12 months with code In this online-exclusive deal, Optus is offering a 20% discount on Small and Medium SIM only plans for 12 months when you apply the code YES20 at checkout. That gets you a saving of AU$11 p/m on the Small plan and AU$13p/m on the Medium plan, which is quite decent! T&Cs apply. Get 100GB for just AU$39p/m for first 12 months on Small SIM Only Plan Want stacks of data without breaking the bank? This EOFY deal from Vodafone gets you 100GB of data for just AU$39p/m on the telco's Small SIM Only Plan for the first 12 months. That's twice the data the plan normally offers, along with a AU$10 monthly discount, saving you AU$120 over the first year connected. T&Cs apply. Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Save AU$300 + AU$500 bonus trade-in credit with eligible device on 36 months plan If you've got an eligible device to trade in, you can get a bonus AU$500 in trade-in credit towards the Galaxy S25 Ultra, which already has a AU$300 discount on it for EOFY. Of course, you'll need to stay connected to an eligible plan for 36 months months to take advantage. T&Cs apply. Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Save AU$500 when you buy on repayment Those willing to stick with Telstra on an eligible 12, 24 or 36 months plan can save AU$500 over the course of their contract when they buy the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra on repayment. T&Cs and eligibility criteria apply.
Time of India
a day ago
- Business
- Time of India
Vodafone appoints Microsoft's Pilar Lopez as new CFO
NEW DELHI: UK mobile broadband and internet provider Vodafone has appointed Microsoft 's Pilar Lopez as chief financial officer (CFO)-designate, effective October 1, 2025. Lopez's formal tenure as the new finance chief starts December 1, 2025, the telecom group said in a statement on Thursday. Lopez succeeds Luka Mucic, who has decided to leave the company after a two-year tenure. During Mucic's tenure, the telecom company successfully closed the sale of its businesses in Spain and Italy, and won regulatory approval for the merger with 3UK to establish itself as the leading mobile operator in the UK. 'We drove our operational excellence agenda around customers, simplicity and growth with passion, materially stepping up investment in improved experiences for our customers and in our B2B capabilities, we commercialised our shared operations and much more - and it is starting to show in our results,' Mucic said in a statement on LinkedIn, adding that the company's finance organisation has contributed to the transformation journey. 'I am delighted that Pilar will be joining Vodafone in October. She has deep-rooted knowledge of both the telecoms and technology sectors, across a range of international leadership positions,' said Vodafone CEO Margherita Della Valle. 'I'm thrilled to be joining Vodafone at such an important time in the Group's transformation. I am excited to work with Margherita and the team as Vodafone continues to improve the service to its customers, further simplify operations across the Group, and deliver sustainable growth in free cash flow,' Lopez said. Lopez has served in several senior roles at Microsoft, including chief operating officer (COO) for Western Europe, and more recently, leading the US tech giant's partnership with the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). She also spent 16 years with Spanish telecoms group Telefonica in various finance and senior leadership roles before joining Microsoft.
