Vodafone said on Tuesday it will pay £4.3bn to buy CK Hutchison’s 49% stake in their VodafoneThree joint venture, a move that will leave the British mobile business wholly controlled by Vodafone when the deal closes in the second half of this year. The transaction values VodafoneThree at nearly £13.9bn and would make it the top dog among the UK’s three mobile-network operators.

The announcement came as Vodafone shares traded at 115.85p on Tuesday afternoon, giving the company a market value of £26.7bn. That was a long way from the near £3 level the stock reached in December 2013, even after a sharp recent recovery: the shares were up 58.8% over the past year as of 5 May, but still down 18.3% over five years.

Cliff D’Arcy, an investor quoted in the background to the move, said he was hopeful the latest deal would prove positive for shareholders. He also said he was happy to keep holding Vodafone stock for the near-3.4% yearly dividend yield while waiting for the benefits to show through.

The deal lands after a bruising stretch for the shares that only started to ease this year. Vodafone’s stock hit a low of 62.4p on 9 April 2025, before the recent rebound carried it back above 115p by Tuesday afternoon. The recovery has been tied to Margherita Della Valle’s turnaround strategy since she became permanent chief executive in April 2023, with the company selling non-core assets, investing in core markets and buying back its own shares.

That strategy has not been painless for income investors. Vodafone halved its yearly cash payout from 9 euro cents to 4.5 euro cents from 2025 onwards in May 2024, after the yield had reached double digits at times. The company then announced its first dividend increase in eight years in November 2025, a sign that management wants to pair stronger cash returns with the broader repair job.

What happens next is straightforward and expensive. Vodafone must complete the purchase, integrate full control of VodafoneThree and prove that owning the whole venture can justify the £4.3bn price tag. For shareholders, the question is whether this marks the point where the Vodafone share price stops being a recovery story and starts looking like a durable one.