[Ben]

Vodafone is having a yard sale. China Mobile will go, and now it looks like SFR (in France) will, too. Poland's "Plus" and others are being talked about, and perhaps one day even Verizon will finally be put out given that it looks unlikely Vodafone will ever take control.

What do you think about Vodafone's moves to sell minority stakes?

Personally in markets such as France I'd like to see credible plans from Vodafone to get back into the market with new wholly owned LTE networks, or to up their game on acquisitions. I want to see a strong Vodafone, and for me that means having a credible, majority owned network in as many countries as possible. I'm not averse to selling stakes where control is unlikely to ever be a possibility, but Vodafone should definitely think twice before exiting markets that will be incredibly difficult to get back into.

[Hands0n]

Good lord how cyclic and repetitious life is. I have now lived sufficiently long and worked sufficiently long in the City to see this go around and come around twice! Companies stretching themselves, "diversifying" to spread the revenue income, yadda yadda yadda. Only for it all to implode like a soap bubble - it really is that fragile. But shareholder greed does that for you. The investors wouldn't care a toss if Vodafone disappeared tomorrow - they'd move on to the next cash cow they can find in the markets. It is all a bit of a game - the product or service is completely immaterial.

I well remember during Norton Motorcycle's renaissance a couple of decades back. They were beginning to do well to breath new life into the marque. Successes were happening on the race track and anyone who could afford a Norton F1 sports was getting one hell of a motorcycle. Then what did the bright sparks who run the finance of such companies do? The idiots bought a furniture company. Go on, put the two together if you can but it is completely lost on me. Within 18 months it all turned sour and Norton Motorcycles and the furniture company went into oblivion. Well done.

So, Vodafone re-trenching makes a lot of sense to me, particularly in these financially risky times. They do not need to be propping up foreign mobile networks. Far better to survive double or triple dip recessions by strengthening the core business and reconciling the experience, service and finances. If they do it right they'll build up a huge cash reserve and not fritter it away on shareholder dividends. Ignore what the banks and the City say - take a leaf out of Sky's book and hang on to as much of the green stuff as they can. No shareholder is going to walk away from a strong, cash rich and resilient company. And Vodafone could be all of those, if it plays its cards right.

It is far too early to tell. Vodafone's FD may yet make a fatal slip rooted by greed. Watch this space.