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 Verizon Communications agreed on Monday to spend $130 billion to take full control of its enormous wireless unit because it said it believed that the American desire for cellphones and broadband services was not yet nearly sated. 
 
 In buying out its longtime partner, Vodafone of Britain, the telecommunications giant is also striking a takeover more than a decade in the making, taking advantage of receptive debt markets and its own strong stock. 
 
 And Vodafone will be flush with cash to reinvest in its own businesses and to buy competitors in Europe and emerging markets. 
 
 The roughly 100 million Verizon Wireless customers probably will not see any change in their services, at least at first. But the telecommunications industry is very much in flux as new competitors like SoftBank of Japan have entered the market, while new opportunities for wireless services have emerged. Verizon viewed gaining full control of its biggest business as essential to addressing those trends. In the most recent quarter, wireless services accounted for $20 billion of the company’s nearly $30 billion in revenue. 
 
 Among its plans is bundling mobile broadband services with wired offerings like high-speed, fiber-optic connections. 
 
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 “There’s a big phase of growth in the U.S. telecom market,” Lowell C. McAdam, Verizon’s chief executive, said in an interview. “The timing was perfect for us.” 
 
 The deal is enormous by any measure, with the price nearly equaling Verizon’s entire market value. As part of the complex deal, Verizon agreed to pay $58.9 billion in cash and an additional $60.2 billion worth of its shares to Vodafone, the latter of which will be distributed to Vodafone’s shareholders. Verizon will also sell its minority stake in Vodafone’s Italian business for $3.5 billion, as part of a series of smaller transactions tied to the deal. The amount it is paying is merely for 45 percent of Verizon Wireless, implying that the wireless unit is being valued at nearly $290 billion. 
 
 Vittorio Colao, chief executive of Vodafone, told reporters on Monday that the deal offered good value for his shareholders. “It was a good move for both partners, and we were able to find the right price,” he said. 
 
 The deal comes at a critical time for the American telecommunications industry. The country’s wireless business has had a gradual slowdown in subscriber growth in the last few years because many people who want a cellphone already have one. In the second quarter, the growth rate of the American wireless market was 2.2 percent — the first time it has fallen below 2.5 percent, said Craig Moffett, an analyst for Moffett Research. 
 
 The carriers, including Verizon, have said newer devices like tablets would help improve growth. But Mr. Moffett said that about 90 percent of the tablets that people were buying connect only to Wi-Fi networks, not cellular service. For wireless carriers, other markets for potential growth include cars or home security systems. But it is unclear whether those revenue streams will provide much growth to the industry. 
 
 “All those futuristic visions are almost certainly real,” Mr. Moffett said. “The question is whether they are big enough to really move the needle for an industry the size of the U.S. wireless market.” 
 
 Mr. McAdam pointed to the emergence of new, data-hungry uses across sectors as disparate as health care and education. “I don’t think the wireless market is losing steam at all,” he said. 
 
 For Vodafone, the deal will provide a huge war chest that could help it reshape the European telecommunications industry. The industry has suffered lackluster earnings and growing international competition, leading regulators to push for carriers to invest in new high-speed data networks that would stand toe-to-toe with those in the United States and South Korea. 
 
 Vodafone has committed to spending about $10 billion over three years in high-speed cellphone and broadband services across its markets in Europe and the developing world. 
 
 It would use another $20 billion from the sale of its Verizon Wireless stake to reduce its debt burden, but Mr. Colao said the company could still look to complete further acquisitions if it found the right targets. 
 
 “If we find good opportunities, we would look at those assets,” he said. 
 
 Born 14 years ago when Vodafone agreed to merge its United States operations with Bell Atlantic, Verizon Wireless became the largest cellphone operator in the United States, keeping pace with AT&T. 
 
 Executives on both sides have long discussed how to end the joint venture. Several options were floated over the years, according to Mr. McAdam, including merging Verizon’s and Vodafone’s entire companies. 
 
 But Vodafone often hesitated about ending a highly lucrative partnership, one that paid it a multibillion-dollar dividend every year. The onset of the European financial crisis further solidified the British company’s desire to keep a steady and stable source of income. 
 
 Still, progress appeared to emerge in the last three years. Mr. McAdam became Verizon’s chief executive in 2010, forming what people briefed on the matter described as a solid relationship with Mr. Colao, his counterpart at Vodafone. 
 
 About a year ago, Mr. McAdam said, he began seriously examining buying full control of Verizon Wireless, speaking with Mr. Colao and Vodafone’s chairman, Gerard Kleisterlee. Both sides agreed that the status quo was not an option. 
 
 Verizon turned to a cadre of advisers, including Guggenheim Partners; Paul J. Taubman, a former Morgan Stanley rainmaker; JPMorgan Chase; Morgan Stanley; Bank of America Merrill Lynch; and Barclays. Vodafone relied upon UBS and Goldman Sachs. 
 
 Known as “Project River,” with Verizon called “Hudson” and Vodafone “Thames,” the talks continued in fits and starts. Rumors of potential takeover structures — in one, Verizon and AT&T would team up to buy Vodafone, an idea never seriously considered — began to spread throughout the markets, prompting each side to clamp down on leaks. 
 
 But even during quiet periods this year, the Verizon team consulted regularly with the likes of Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan, James P. Gorman of Morgan Stanley and Alan D. Schwartz of Guggenheim, Mr. McAdam said. 
 
 One important issue was making sure Verizon could afford the deal. The company’s bankers insisted that the debt markets could support the sheer amount of bonds expected to be issued. Verizon’s underwriters are expected to sell more than $40 billion worth of paper, making the company the biggest issuer of bonds around. 
 
 The telecommunications company and its bankers also held lengthy consultations with debt ratings agencies, eager to preserve Verizon’s investment-grade credit rating. 
 
 The pieces finally fell into place in mid-July. Mr. McAdam, who was in San Francisco to open a Verizon innovation center, agreed to meet at a hotel with Mr. Colao, who was flying back from Australia. 
 
 “Things locked up in place like a Rubik’s Cube,” Mr. McAdam said. 
 
 Brian X. Chen contributed reporting. ||||| British mobile phone group Vodafone pulled off one of the biggest deals in corporate history on Monday− selling its stake in America's biggest mobile phone business for $130bn (£84bn). 
 
 More than £54bn of the proceeds will be returned to Vodafone's shareholders − with £22bn going to UK investors. Vodafone will also pour cash into its existing business to accelerate the rollout of superfast 4G broadband services across Europe. 
 
 The deal − the third biggest transaction between two companies ever recorded − involves Vodafone selling its 45% shareholding in Verizon Wireless to Verizon Communications, which owns the other 55% of VW. It will end years of bickering between the two joint owners, who had tussled over the direction and control of Verizon Wireless, which was formed in 2000 and has since become the US's most profitable mobile carrier. 
 
 Coming five years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the US which triggered the worldwide credit crunch, the deal also underlines the extent to which financial markets have recovered: $65bn of the cash Verizon is using to finance the deal is coming from four banks. 
 
 Vodafone is one of the UK's most widely held shares and the huge return of cash was likened by some City sources to the Bank of England's quantitative easing programme, which aims to boost the economy by electronic money printing. 
 
 As many as 500,000 private shareholders in the UK who own up to £10,000 of shares each could be in line for payments of up to £4,000, a windfall that will be tax-free as long as it is invested through an individual savings account (ISA) or pension fund. 
 
 Cash returned to pension funds is likely to be immediately reinvested in the stockmarket, which could drive share prices higher. 
 
 The deal was thrashed out by the chief executives of the two companies on Saturday morning and rubber stamped by the directors of the UK and US businesses on Sunday and Monday. The details were released last night after the stock exchange had closed. 
 
 Vodafone plans to invest £6bn over the next three years on updating its own mobile and fixed networks and opening more high street stores. It will also use the proceeds to pay off debt to arm itself for further investments in Europe and emerging markets. 
 
 Vittorio Colao, Vodafone's chief executive, insisted it was "not a retreat in any way" from the US, but declined to discuss what interest he might have in US businesses in future. He paid tribute to Chris Gent, the former Vodafone chief executive who led the move into the US: "He had a great idea." It is unclear exactly how much profit Vodafone has made from the deal, but it is tens of billions of pounds. 
 
 In what could become a controversial element of the deal Vodafone will not have to pay any UK tax on the deal − even though it had insisted for years that it could not exit from the prickly relationship with Verizon Communications because it would have to pay capital gains tax (CGT) at 40%. 
 
 But a company tax law introduced by Gordon Brown in 2002 governing the sale of substantial shareholdings means that Vodafone was never liable for CGT. Vodafone's stake in the US business is owned by a Dutch holding company − similar rules on CGT apply in the Netherlands. It will, however, pay about $5bn in US taxes. "This transaction happened in the Netherlands, but even if it had happened in the UK there would be no tax liability," Colao said as the deal was closed. He insisted it was a completely different situation to the rows that have broken out over Google's and Amazon's tax arrangements. 
 
 The terms of the deal will give Vodafone almost $60bn in cash, and another $60bn in Verizon Communications shares, together with $11bn from smaller transactions related to businesses it owns. 
 
 The Verizon sale is not the first time Vodafone has pulled off a gigantic deal. It also made the world's biggest ever deal in 2000 when it made a hostile takeover of German industrial and mobile conglomerate Mannesmann for $200bn (£112bn at the time). However, the UK group had to write off the acquisition six years later − which at the time resulted in the UK's biggest ever corporate loss of £23.5bn. 
 
 The years-long struggle to control Verizon Wireless was likened by Benedict Evans, technology analyst at Enders Analysis, to "two pythons swallowing the same pig from opposite ends. Noses meet in the middle and neither can go forward or back". 
 
 Solving the tax quandary, along with a rise in Verizon's offer from $100bn to $130bn, finally shifted Vodafone − and meant that Verizon Communications could swallow its namesake whole. 
 
 Over the past 20 years Vodafone has expanded aggressively to more than 30 countries across Europe, Africa and Asia. But without the US business, it will be more reliant on its European business, as well as being less profitable.
– Things seem pretty cozy at the top in the world of telecommunications: Verizon has bought out its British partner Vodafone and the CEOs involved say the third-biggest corporate deal in history was forged in a San Francisco gym. "We got up early. We were both down at the gym together, we had a brief conversation on the exercise bicycle," Verizon chief Lowell McAdam tells Reuters, adding that he also chatted with Vodafone's Vittorio Colao at breakfast. "We looked at the final bit of data, and we said, 'Looks like $130 billion is about the right number and let's see if we can put a deal together around that," he says. Verizon—America's biggest wireless provider—now has full control of its wireless unit after buying Vodafone's 45% stake, but its 100 million US customers are unlikely to see any immediate change in their services, reports the New York Times. "There’s a big phase of growth in the US telecom market," McAdam says. "The timing was perfect for us." The huge deal also highlights how well banks have bounced back from the financial crisis, the Guardian notes: Verizon was able to raise the $60 billion cash it is using to finance the deal from four banks. Vodafone will also receive $60 billion in Verizon shares and around $10 billion from related transactions.