Indian worries drag on Vodafone

Vodafone was proving a big drag on the market today, as Indian worries appeared to weigh on the mobile phone giant. It should have been a positive morning for Vodafone after stories at the weekend about its stake in French group SFR held out the hope of a cash boost for the group. But a political row in India over the sell-off of spectrum too cheaply appeared to be hitting the stock. In brief, the Indian opposition wants a full investigation into the sale of licences, worth billions of dollars. Former Telecoms minister Andimuthu Raja, forced to resign a week ago, is being accused of selling the licenses and spectrums too cheaply in 2007-8. Several mobile phone groups were mentioned as having got licences too cheaply, with Reuters reporting today that there are allegations that when Vodafone's network was at full capacity it got extra spectrum for free when it should have paid "hundreds of millions of dollars." Vodafone's shares were down 1.4% at lunchtime, to 165.4p. Given the mobile phone giant's size, that knocked almost 5 points off the FTSE 100, itself down 0.8% after the Irish bailout failed to convince. The SFR deal probably provided some support for Vodafone even so. French group Vivendi is making the purchase of Vodafone's 44pc stake its top priority, chief executive Jean-Bernard Levy said last week.