UK: Vodafone and Three announce intention to merge, creating the biggest operator

The UK’s third and fourth operators by market share have today announced their intention to merge. We’re talking about Vodafone and Three. The combined company would leapfrog past both EE (the current No.1) and O2 (the No.2), creating the country’s biggest operator while at the same time lowering competition, since where there were four, there will be only three.

As part of the proposed deal, Vodafone would own 51% of the combined business and CK Hutchinson Group Telecom Holdings (the owner of the Three brand) would have 49%.

Of course, as usual in these situations, wonderful things…