Vodafone, a military radio maker’s side project, ended up worth more than its maker.
Racal, Britain’s biggest maker of military radios, went looking in 1980 for civilian uses of battlefield radio technology, and in 1982 won one of the country’s first two mobile licenses. In 1988 it sold a fifth of Vodafone on the stock market, and the stake it kept was valued above the whole of Racal.
Vodafone on Brandseum