Vodafone offers £20m for Wayfinder

Wayfinder provides mobile location and navigation services

Vodafone has made an offer of 239 million Swedish kronas (£20m) to buy Wayfinder, a Stockholm-based company that supplies location and navigation services for mobile phones.

The offer works out at 99p per share, a premium of 252.9 per cent on the closing value of Wayfinder's stock this month.

The generous offer looks likely to guarantee a positive outcome for Vodafone. Wayfinder's board has recommended the offer to its shareholders, and more than 40 per cent have so far agreed to the sale.

The official three-week acceptance period will start as soon as the offer has been registered with the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority.

If the acquisition goes ahead, Vodafone will own a business specialising in global maps that contain over three million points of interest, as well as guided navigation and traffic information updates.