It was rumored earlier that Verizon was teaming up with AT&T to acquire Vodafone, which is the second largest mobile carrier in the entire world. The deal was reportedly worth over $245 billion dollars. As rumors were circulating, Vodafone shares jumped over 6% but came down 3.4% when the carrier formally announced that is no plans of buying out Vodafone, either on its own or with a second bidding partner, who in this case with rumored to be AT&T. Reportedly, the deal was going to give Verizon the 45% stake that Vodafone has in its U.S. operations back, whereas all operations outside of the U.S. would have been AT&T’s taking.
The alleged deal has now been officially denied in regulatory filing that Verizon made today. The carrier saying that it would be a willing purchaser for the 45% stake Vodafone has in Verizon Wireless, though it does not currently have any plans of merging with or making an offer for Vodafone either on its own or with a partner. Maybe they’ll think about acquiring Vodafone somewhere down the road or maybe they’ll not. Speculation ends, for now.