American communications giant Verizon Communications, has denied any merger ambitions with UK company Vodafone that saw a 6% speculative rise in their share value on Tuesday.

However, Vodafone does have a 45% stake in Verizon Wireless and Verizon have stated that they are open to purchasing this shareholding.

The rumour mill also churns out the possibility of Verizon attempting a full purchase of Vodafone aided by AT&T, a huge mouthful to swallow at around £100 billion but there are plenty of heavyweight hedge funds that might run a slide rule over a partnership to buy and split a company even as large as Vodafone.