London, Feb 13, 2026, 09:17 (GMT) — Regular session
- Vodafone slipped roughly 1% in early London trading, though the stock hovered close to its recent highs.
- The group said it picked up 11.3 million shares on Feb. 12, paying an average of 114.68p apiece.
- Vodafone rolled out an FCA-approved supplement related to its €30 billion bond programme as well.
Shares of Vodafone VOD.L slipped roughly 1% to 113.35 pence just after the session opened in London, trading at that level by 0911 GMT.
Investors are picking through a fresh batch of capital-markets maneuvers from Vodafone Group Public Limited Company: buybacks over here, some debt documentation over there. The company, for its part, is still working to hold together its turnaround story.
Buybacks have an impact—they reduce the float and sometimes act as a stabilizer when trading volume dries up. As for the debt filing, it keeps the spotlight on funding costs and ongoing refinancing risk for European telecoms, even on days when fresh capital isn’t hitting the market.
Vodafone snapped up 11,293,787 ordinary shares on Thursday, picking them up from Goldman Sachs International as part of its share buyback. The company said the volume-weighted average price came in at 114.68 pence, with trades landing anywhere from 113.95 to 115.15 pence.
The company said it plans to keep the shares in treasury. Those shares sit with the company itself—not outside holders—a standard move ahead of either canceling them or allocating to staff plans. In both cases, the effective free float tends to shrink over time.
Vodafone, for its part, announced it has released a supplementary prospectus dated Feb. 12, now signed off by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK, tied to the company’s €30 billion Euro Medium Term Note (EMTN) programme.
Think of an EMTN programme as a sort of permanent “shelf” — it allows a company to tap the bond market repeatedly, sparing them from having to redo base documents for every fresh issue. While setting one up doesn’t automatically mean a deal is around the corner, traders keep an eye on these updates, hunting for hints about when and how soon a company might move.
According to a U.S. filing, two top Vodafone executives have added to their holdings via the company’s dividend reinvestment plan, which takes cash dividends and uses them to buy shares. Chair Jean‑François van Boxmeer picked up 23,785 shares at £1.14 apiece, while Joakim Reiter, who leads external and corporate affairs, acquired 52,297 shares at £1.14083 each, the filing said.
This month, Vodafone projected its earnings and free cash flow for the year ending March would hit the upper range of its forecast, despite ongoing doubts over how quickly its German business might rebound. “Every quarter customer experience goes one step higher,” chief executive Margherita Della Valle said to reporters. Reuters
Even so, the downside isn’t hard to imagine. Should Germany lose steam in this price-sensitive market, investors could shift their attention away from buybacks, zeroing in instead on service revenue, cash flow, and leverage—particularly if bond markets get shaky and financing costs jump.
Coming up: investors are eyeing more buyback details, possible bond sales tied to the revised program, and Vodafone’s FY26 results due May 12.
