Heavy hitter hits town

Vodafone relocates U.S. headquarters to 18th and Champa

Jeff Smith, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 8, 2007 at midnight

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Colorado has landed a U.S. corporate headquarters that owns one of the most valuable assets in the world.

And yet the office is staffed by only 14 people.

The company?

Vodafone Americas Inc., which manages the company's 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless. The wireless carrier generated $9.6 billion of operating income on $38 billion of revenues last year.

Vodafone Americas recently relocated its U.S. headquarters from Walnut Creek, Calif., to 18th and Champa streets downtown.

The office is modest - 6,000 square feet on the 17th floor of Denver Place's South Tower.

That's how Vodafone wants it.

"There's no big scoop," said Jeff Bloszies, Vodafone Americas president and chief financial officer. "We moved a small office that owns some very large assets. We're a lean office, and we're going to stay that way."

Vodafone's parent company, based in the United Kingdom, is the largest mobile telecommunications network company in the world, with 198.6 million customers as of Dec. 31 and equity interests in 25 countries worldwide.

In the U.S., Vodafone acquired AirTouch in 1999, then jointly formed Verizon Wireless with what is now Verizon Communications in early 2000.

Verizon, with a 55 percent majority stake, operates Verizon Wireless.

So what exactly does Vodafone Americas do? Bloszies said his own family has wondered the same thing.

"The best way to describe it is that it's like an investment management group," Bloszies said. "It's a large and complex agreement, and we're managing that to make sure our rights are retained."

The group in Denver includes legal, tax and accounting executives. Bloszies said Vodafone Americas doesn't receive revenues from the business but instead gets a distribution to offset the income taxes it must pay.

Vodafone still has some employees in California as well, mainly in research and development and working on some potential new ventures.

Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., said his office has been working with Vodafone for several months.

"Obviously this is much more of a brand name in Europe than the United States, but it's certainly a major corporate move, even though the number of staffers probably will remain small," Clark said. "It's a reassertion of the fact that Denver increasingly is being viewed as a headquarters town by many corporations."

Bloszies lived in Denver as a boy from ages 3 to 9. But he mainly grew up in California and most recently was based in England as Vodafone's top finance executive for affiliates in Africa and Asia.

The decision to relocate the U.S. headquarters to Denver was an economic one made before he was hired for the job, he said. He said Vodafone liked the low operating costs in Denver, the availability of high-quality labor, and "we wanted to make sure the location had a good international airport" nearby.

Donna Jaegers, a telecommunications analyst at Janco Partners in Denver, found the move intriguing. While it may make economic sense, Jaegers wondered if it was done in anticipation of a rumored move by Verizon Wireless to acquire Arkansas-based Alltel, which is big in central U.S.

Vodafone has passed up on options to sell part of its stake in Verizon Wireless to Verizon, with one last option this summer.

"We're happy with our stake," Bloszies said.

And why not? Verizon Wireless posted a 17.8 percent revenue gain in 2006.

The Federal Communications Commission has to approve a foreign entity owning part of a U.S. wireless company. As part of the government's approval in 2000, Verizon and Vodafone entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation concerning how Verizon Wireless stores information and conducts its business.

Voda-what?

Vodafone, the world's largest mobile telecommunications company, has relocated its U.S. headquarters from Walnut Creek, Calif., to Denver.

• Where: Denver Place, South Tower

• Employees: 14

• What it does: Manages the company's 45 percent investment stake in Verizon Wireless.

• What else the Denver office will do: Home of a foundation that supports telecommunications engineering scholarships. Also manages a minority stake in Texas-based ATX, which provides telematics (automated roadside assistance and remote vehicle diagnostics) in BMW, Maybach, Mercedes-Benz and Rolls Royce.

Where did the name Vodafone come from?

It is a combination of voice, data and phone (fone), reflecting the company's primary business of providing voice and data services over mobile phones.

smithje@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5155

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