Vodafone to sell holdings for £4bn

Vodafone hopes to finalise the sale of its stake in a Polish mobile phone operator in the next two weeks in a deal expected to raise more than £4bn.

The UK's third-largest network and its fellow owners of Polkomtel, Poland's second-largest operator, are discussing its sale to the tycoon Zygmunt Solorz-Zak.

This marks the latest move in Vodafone's drive to sell off its minority holdings in foreign phone companies and is expected to be the last in the short term.

Mr Solorz-Zak trumped bids tabled by the US private equity company Apax and the telecoms group Telenor with an offer that valued the business at 18 billion zlotys (£4bn).

Vodafone's sale of its holding in Polkomtel, which was set up in 1996 and has 13.7 million customers, follows the strategy by its chief executive, Vittorio Colao, to divest minority holdings.