Telefonica appointed financial services company Morgan Stanley to find a buyer for a minority stake in a newly formed division comprising its IoT, big data, cloud and security businesses, El Confidencial reported.

The Spanish newspaper stated the company was willing to offer up to a 49 per cent stake in the Telefonica Tech unit, which was created as part of a sweeping restructure of its business announced in November 2019.

Telefonica Tech brings together the operator’s B2B activities in areas deemed to be high growth, with a view to upping sales of related product lines in existing and new markets.

The unit is expected to contribute €2 billion in additional group revenue in 2022 compared with sales booked for the individual services in 2019. It would also house any businesses acquired in related industries.

At the time of its creation, Telefonica CEO Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete said the unit’s high growth potential would “serve to continue attracting new technological talent and potential partners”.

Rumours of the company offering a share in the division to investors come a week after a news broke of a consortium tabling a bid for a majority stake in Telefonica’s Latin America division, which was spun-off as part of the same business reorganisation.