AUG 25: Swisscom AG, the largest Swiss phone company, may be next to buy a Vodafone Group Plc holding in a jointly owned company, following Belgacom SA’s $2.6 billion buyout of a stake in a Belgian mobile operator.

Belgacom on Thursday agreed to buy the remaining 25% stake in its Proximus unit from Vodafone, the world’s biggest mobile-phone operator. Vodafone also holds a quarter of Swisscom Mobile, and Swisscom said as recently as two weeks ago buying the stake is “a matter of timing.” “If they can agree on the right value for Swisscom Mobile, a deal can happen pretty quickly,” said Panagiotis Spiliopoulos, a Bank Vontobel AG analyst in Zurich, who values the stake at as much as 2.75 billion Swiss francs ($2.2 billion). Newbury, England-based Vodafone, led by chief executive officer Arun Sarin, is exiting markets where the company does not have controlling stakes to improve returns by abandoning saturated markets. Bern-based Swisscom sold the wireless stake to Vodafone in 2001 for 4.5 billion francs.

Source- http://www.financialexpress.com

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