Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison agrees to sell 49% stake as it attempts to reshape its portfolio

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Vodafone is to take full control of the UK’s biggest mobile operator in a £4.3bn buyout deal with the Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison.

The billionaire Li Ka-shing’s business said it had agreed to sell its 49% stake in VodafoneThree – a network with more than 27 million subscribers – to its partner Vodafone.

Rural dwellers reveal failings in backup plans, as campaigners call for deadline to be extended from 2027 to 2030

“Every time there is a power failure I lose all means of communication with the outside world,” says Robert Dewar of life in a remote village in the Scottish Highlands since the landlines were transferred from the old copper cable network to broadband connections.

Blackouts also knock out the village’s mobile phone signal. “Our most recent power cut lasted for 42 hours,” Dewar says. The interruption outlasted his five-hour emergency backup battery. “If I had had a heart attack there is damn all I could have done about it, except compose myself, say my prayers, and await the outcome.”

Shopkeepers charged millions of pounds, including alleged £10,000 penalty for mistake that cost firm £7.08

Vodafone incentivised its security staff to increase “clawbacks” levied on its own franchisees, as part of a programme that led to the telecoms group fining its own shopkeepers millions of pounds for seemingly small administrative errors.

The policy – which included one alleged case of a £10,000 penalty for a franchisee whose mistake cost Vodafone £7.08 – involved setting “key performance indicators” (KPIs) for the telecoms group’s internal employees to collect total annual fines of £1.5m from the small business people running the FTSE 100 company’s high street stores.