Vodafone is 30 years old but the high point for its shareholders, remarkably, came 20 years ago – in the days when mobile phones were new and exciting. The group had just completed its daring and record-breaking acquisition of German group Mannesmann. Its share price hit 400p and the UK seemed to have a global success on its hands.
Since then, Vodafone’s tale has been one of many more rounds of deal-making, but mostly to try to keep up with a telecoms industry where investment demands only seem to get bigger, especially when fast-fibre comes along to complicate the fixed line-versus-mobile balance.
