Vodafone eyes larger synergies from Dutch joint venture

(ShareCast News) - Vodafone is due to receive a €0.6m cash payment after it tied up its VodafoneZiggo joint venture in the Netherlands with Virgin Media owner Liberty Global.As a result of the sale of Vodafone's lossmaking Thuis arm, VodafoneZiggo is predicted to reap around €3.5bn of efficiencies and synergies from the merger of both company's Dutch operations, though the amount that both sides will pay into the JV has increased to an estimated €211m from the previous €182m.This resulted from both parent companies agreeing to bump up the services they provided post completion "to ensure that VodafoneZiggo will benefit from the full scale and complementary expertise of each partner".The business, which will serve 7.1m homes, would for the twelve months ended September 30 have generated over €4bn of revenue.Vodafone's chief executive Vittorio Colao said: "The merged operation will be a stronger competitor in the Netherlands - one of our core European markets - and is a further example of Vodafone's ability to create value for its customers and shareholders through an effective market-by-market convergence strategy."