Vodafone Group Plc said on Monday that it had agreed to sell its New Zealand business for about 2.1 billion euros (US$2.36 billion) to a consortium comprising of New Zealand-based Infratil Ltd and Canada's Brookfield Asset Management.
The deal comes as Vodafone is looking to consolidate its businesses in Australia and New Zealand, with a $11 billion deal underway to merge its Australian joint venture business with TPG Telecom. Australia's anti-trust regulator already blocked that merger bid.
Vodafone, in 2017, had tried to sell Vodafone NZ to Sky Network Television for NZ$3.44 billion ($2.3 billion) but failed to get regulatory clearance due to monopoly concerns.
The business, since then, axed thousands of jobs and restructured itself in preparation to a stock market float that never saw the light of the day.
Its newly installed Chief Executive Officer Jason Paris had said in November that the company would look to go public in 2020.
In May 2019, utilities investor Infratil had said that it was in talks with Vodafone to buy, along with another unnamed party, the telecom giant's New Zealand operations.
Vodafone on Monday said that, on completion of the deal, it would enter into an deal with Vodafone New Zealand to allow it to use its brand name and certain services. The completion of the deal is still contingent on necessary regulatory approvals.
Vodafone New Zealand currently has about two million mobile customers compared to about 700 million for parent Vodafone Group as of December 31, 2018.
(Reporting by Sangameswaran S in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)