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NEW YORK, April 25 (Reuters) - Verizon Communications has hired advisers to prepare a possible $100 billion cash andstock bid to take full control of Verizon Wireless from itspartner Vodafone, two people familiar with the mattertold Reuters.
It is the latest twist in a long relationship between thetwo telecommunications giants. Following is a timeline chartingtheir history together:
1994
June: U.S. regional phone company Bell Atlantic forms awireless partnership with neighboring peer NYNEX covering 55million potential customers. Verizon today calls this deal thebeginnings of what is now Verizon Wireless.
1996
April: Bell Atlantic and NYNEX agree to an outright merger.
1998
July: Bell Atlantic and peer GTE agree to merge.
1999
January: Britain's Vodafone says it will buy U.S. wirelesscompany AirTouch Communications.
September: Bell Atlantic and Vodafone AirTouch Plc agree tocombine their U.S. wireless companies, including Bell AtlanticMobile and AirTouch Cellular, into a single joint venture.
2000
April: The Bell Atlantic/Vodafone AirTouch joint venture isapproved, and begins operations as Verizon Wireless.
June: The Bell Atlantic/GTE merger closes, creating VerizonCommunications. At that time, GTE's wireless operations areadded into Verizon Wireless.
At that point Verizon Communications became majority ownerof the wireless joint venture, with a 55 percent stake.
2004:
February: Vodafone loses out in the bidding to buy AT&TWireless, a deal that would have let the company bring its brandto the United States but also might have forced it to sell itsVerizon Wireless stake.
Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin says Vodafone will sit down withVerizon and discuss the future of their partnership.
September: Sarin says both Vodafone and Verizon would liketo have bigger stakes in their joint venture, creating animpasse between the two.
In 2004 the joint venture pays its parents dividends of $3.2bln in two installments.
2005
Verizon Wireless pays dividends of about $1.997 billion toits parents and distributions to cover its parents' taxpayments. While it pays its parents billions of dollars in thecoming years to cover tax obligations, its next non-tax relatedpayout is not announced until 2011, causing friction betweenthem.
2007
July: Vodafone denies reports it is considering a $160billion to take over Verizon Communications in its entirety as away to consolidate their venture.
2008
July: Vittorio Colao is appointed Chief Executive ofVodafone, replacing Sarin. Colao had been on the board sinceOctober 2006.
2009
January: Verizon Wireless completes a $28.1 billionacquisition of regional carrier Alltel that includes theassumption of $22 .2 billion in debt. For years it said it waswithholding dividends to its parents in order to use its cash topay off the debt incurred in the Alltel deal.
2011
July: Lowell McAdam is named CEO of Verizon Communicationsreplacing Ivan Seidenberg. Before McAdam became COO of Verizonin 2010 he had served as CEO of Verizon Wireless.
2012
January: Verizon Wireless pays its parents a dividend of $10billion. It had announced plans to pay a dividend in July 2011.
December: Verizon Wireless pays an $8.5 billion dividend.
2013
January: The year kicks off with reports Verizon couldconsider a purchase of the Verizon Wireless stake. CEO McAdamtells Dow Jones a deal could be "feasible" but then tellsReuters the companies were not in talks about a deal at thetime.
March: Speculation is rampant again after a Bloomberg reportthat Verizon is eying a resolution to the Vodafone relationshipthis year. Sources tell Reuters that Vodafone has lawyers andbankers looking at deal options.
April 3: Verizon repeated its long stated desire to buy outVodafone's 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless, says has nointention of pursuing a Verizon/Vodafone merger in response tospeculation.
April 18: Verizon CFO Fran Shammo says his company isconfident it could buy Vodafone's Verizon Wireless stake withoutmajor tax implications. This is seen by investors as a sign thatVerizon is applying pressure on Vodafone to discuss a deal.
April 24: Reuters reports that Verizon is preparing a $100billion bid for the stake and could use a structure that couldlimit Vodafone's tax obligation to $5 billion or less.
Sources: Verizon corporate history, Reuters, other news services
