Cable & Wireless Worldwide board accepts Vodafone’s $1.6 bn bid

UK telecommunications company Cable & Wireless Worldwide Plc (CWW) yesterday urged its shareholders to accept mobile phone giant Vodafone Group Plc's £1 billion ($1.6 billion) takeover offer despite its largest shareholder opposing the deal.

Unveiling another poor set of results, the troubled telecom service provider said its core earnings fell 14 per cent to £378 million in the year ended March on revenues of £2.1 billion.

It also took £606 million as exceptional charges and warned that it would underperform this year due to challenging trading conditions. Any restructuring of the company would take time to have an effect, it added.

Failure to achieve any part of the plan will impact the value of the business and, as such, places risk on any effort to optimise value for shareholders on a standalone basis, CWW said in a statement.

''We weighed up the transformational plan and the potential upside against the risks and the time that it would take; we believe the Vodafone offer represents an excellent opportunity for shareholders to realise an attractive valuation in cash today, said Gavin Darby, the newly appointed CEO of CWW.

Shareholders OF CWW will vote on the bid on 18 June and Vodafone will need more than 75 per cent of votes cast for the deal to go through.

Vodafone approached CWW in early February with a 38-pence-a-share offer, valuing the owner of the largest fibre-optic network in the UK at £1 billion.