The British mobile phone giant Vodafone now holds the entire share capital of its German arm Vodafone AG, formerly known as Mannesmann, after 'squeezing out' the last remaining shareholders at the former Mannesmann's last-ever annual meeting yesterday.
Vodafone is to pay €217.92 a share or €430 million in all, to the 4,000 remaining Mannesmann shareholders who had so far refused to give up their shares.
Under a new German law which came into effect at the beginning of the year, a shareholder with more than 95% of a company is allowed to squeeze out the remaining shareholders in return for a compensation payment.
Vodafone had previously amassed 99.6% of Vodafone AG. The takeover of Mannesmann by the British firm in February 2000 was one of the biggest corporate raids in history.
