EUROPE’S biggest mobile-phone company, Vodafone, has acquired the Italian and Spanish operations of Tele2, a Swedish rival, for €775m (£537m).

The deal gives Vodafone access to almost 1m broadband customers in the two countries, meeting its desire to increase its nonwireless activities.

A spokesman for the company said: “We have a broadband presence in the UK, Germany and France. Italy and Spain are the last two pieces of the jigsaw; this deal completes our broadband presence in the major European markets.”

In a cash-funded deal, Vodafone is buying Tele2 Italy and Tele2 Spain. The former has 2.6m customers, including more than 400,000 broadband users, while the latter has 550,000 customers, including 240,000 signed up for broadband.

The two continental European operations had been up for sale for some weeks and Vodafone last week emerged as a serious contender to acquire them. It beat off competition from the likes of Tiscali and Wind Communications to secure the deal.

Spain and Italy are seen as particularly attractive because broadband penetration is significantly lower than in some of the other big European markets, meaning there are better opportunities to grow the business.

The Vodafone spokesman said that acquiring the infrastruc-ture and staff that the Tele2 operations have in place allowed the British group to “hit the ground running”.

Vodafone has a relatively small presence in the British broadband market, which it entered at the start of this year.

It said that the Tele2 deal would be roughly neutral in relation to its earnings per share in the first full year after the acquisition.

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