Vodafone's £13.5 billion loss biggest in UK corporate history

Telecoms giant Vodafone today reported pre-tax losses of £13.5 billion - or £37 million a day - after writing down the value of acquisitions made during the tech boom.

The telecoms giant Vodafone today reported pre-tax losses of £13.5 billion – equating to £37 million a day – after writing down the value of acquisitions made during the tech boom.

The losses – thought to be the biggest in UK corporate history – dwarf those of stricken telecoms equipment group Marconi, which earlier this month reported losses of £5.7 billion after writing down the value of acquisitions in the US.

Vodafone said it was taking a goodwill charge of £13.4 billion relating to its acquisitions of Japan Telecom and J–Phone, and its £113 billion takeover of German industrial group Mannesmann two years ago.

The group also said it was taking a £6 billion impairment charge relating to the value of businesses such as Arcor, Cegetel, Grupo Iusacell and Japan Telecom, meaning it was writing down the value of these investments.

It is not writing down the value of its "controlled mobile businesses", which includes Mannesmann.

Analysts said the goodwill charge, while pushing the company into loss, would will be largely ignored by the City and reflected an accounting principle to which every company had to adhere.

Analysts were focused on the £6 billion impairment charge, which came in better than expectations of between £8 billion and £20 billion.

Stripping out the goodwill and impairment charges, Vodafone reported pre–tax profits of £6.2 billion for the year to March 31, up 54% on the previous year.

Chief executive Sir Chris Gent said: "These are excellent results. The bottom line loss could be misleading. This disguises the true performance of the business."

Turnover rose 52% to £22.8 billion, while its customer base increased 22% to 101.1 million.

Sir Chris said: "The past year has seen the group successfully execute its adjusted strategy, delivering very strong operational performance and exceptional financial results, including the generation of substantial free cash flow."

He said that in the current year he expected net customer growth of just below 10%, and double–digit revenue growth.

Justin Urquhart Stewart, at Seven Investment Management, said he had expected the group to write off more.

"What they are doing is writing down parts of the landline business but saying – the mobile business we didn't overpay for. I would have expected them to say – here are the big write–offs now, reset the level lower and grow from there."

Shares in the group surged 7% to 112.75p following the announcement, reversing a 7% slide yesterday.

Vodafone said that in the UK it "continued to perform well in the year".

Turnover rose 9% to £3.8 billion while operating profits rose 18% to £941 million. The group had 13.2 million customers in the UK at the end of March, 7% more than last year.

Shareholders in Vodafone will be paid a dividend of 1.4721p a share, up 5% on the previous year.