Verizon Communications could sell assets worth $10bn

Verizon Communications is exploring sale of some assets in an effort to focus on its core business. These assets could be worth as much as $10bn (£6.6bn,€9.3bn) and include its business formerly known as MCI, which provides landline and Internet services to large business customers, and Terremark, its data centre unit.

These businesses, besides facing fierce price competition from companies such as Alphabet and Amazon, have been struggling to keep pace with advances in cloud computing, according to Reuters. Citigroup which has been advising America's largest wireless carrier on the possible sale of the assets, has estimated its annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization at around $2bn.

The assets of the New York-headquartered company might not be easy to separate and potential bids could involve signing commercial agreements with the wireless services company. Earlier this year, Verizon was in talks with wireline provider CenturyLink to sell some of the assets but no deal emerged.

The telecommunications industry has been undergoing rapid changes with players needing to quickly adapt as corporate customers seek cheaper and sophisticated offerings to manage their data. The changing times have led many companies to sell or consider selling their assets.

While AT&T has been trying to sell its data centre assets for some time, Windstream Holdings sold its data centre business for $575m to TierPoint in October 2015.

This year, Verizon sold its residential landline assets to Frontier Communications for $10.5bn and its tower portfolio for more than $5bn. It also acquired AOL for $4.4bn.