Vodafone has completed a deal worth €8bn (£6.7bn) to offload its Italian operations to Swisscom AG.

The UK mobile network operator confirmed it would use the proceeds from the sale to reduce its net debt and said that the Vodafone board would be targeting to return up to €2bn (£1.7bn) to shareholders.

Vodafone, which last month saw its £15bn merger with Three cleared by the Competition and Markets Authority, has made an agreement with Swisscom which will see the UK group continue to provide services to Vodafone Italy for a period of up to five years.

In a statement to the London Stock Exchange, Vodafone said the transaction with the Swiss telecoms group has valued Vodafone Italy at a multiple of 7.6x consensus Adjusted EBITDAaL.

The transaction was also around 26 times the value of Vodafone’s operating free cash flow (OpFCF) for FY24, the highest OpFCF multiple of any Vodafone market transaction in the last 10 years.

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