French billionaire Xavier Niel has agreed to buy a stake in Vodafone Group Plc from Emirates Telecommunications Group for about $6 billion (€5.24 billion) to become the biggest shareholder in the telecommunications group.Niel is already the controlling shareholder in Irish telecoms group, Eir, having acquired 64.5 per cent of the group in April 2018 when buying it out of examinership. He has since mopped up some shares held by US hedge funds.Vega, an investment vehicle controlled by his family, will acquire more than 16 per cent of Vodafone’s shares for about 112.5 pence apiece, including cash and a future dividend, the companies said on Friday. Financial institutions will hold the shares for Vega until the deal gets regulatory approval, and the firm expects to take direct ownership by year-end, it said.Vodafone’s shares rose as much as 14 per cent to 109.1 pence in London, the biggest intraday gain since 1999.Niel, who holds telecommunications assets around the world, including Eir, first acquired a 2.5 per cent stake in Vodafone in 2022. Via Iliad brand, Niel has more than 50 million subscribers across Europe, in France, Italy and Poland. Niel’s other holdings span Latin America, Monaco and Switzerland.“We know the Niel family group well and look forward to engaging with them as a supportive, long-term shareholder,” Vodafone said in an emailed statement.Vodafone’s main markets are the UK and Germany. Since becoming chief executive of the company in 2023, Margherita Della Valle has committed resources to those markets while divesting from others to overhaul a telecommunications empire that at one point stretched from the US to Africa. Her efforts put the company at the leading edge of a push to consolidate the European telecommunications sector, where profits have lagged due to fragmented markets and intense competition.Abu Dhabi-based e&, which is majority owned by the United Arab Emirates’s sovereign wealth fund, became Vodafone’s largest shareholder in 2022 when it bought a 9.8 per cent stake, and then gradually increased its holdings.The stake sale terminates the relationship between the companies that dates to 2022, and e&’s former CEO Hatem Dowidar has resigned from Vodafone’s board, the company said in a separate statement. – Bloomberg