A unit of Vodafone PLC has offered voluntary redundancy to thousands of staff members in New Zealand, the company said on Monday. This was done as part of the company’s plans to review its business ahead of a possible stock market listing next year.

Vodafone New Zealand said about 2,000 employees - with the exception of frontline call centre and retail team members - were asked in February if they would consider redundancy.

A small proportion have taken up the opportunity, a spokeswoman of the company said.

“We're now in the process of working through those expressions of interest and will evaluate them based on ensuring customer service levels are preserved, business continuity maintained, and key skills are retained and developed to drive for our future growth,” she said.

Vodafone New Zealand said in December that it was reviewing all areas of its business to improve its performance and that a new operating model would be finalised in March.

There are no pre-determined number or type of roles that would be impacted, it had said at the time.

Vodafone New Zealand's newly installed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jason Paris said late last year that the company was being restructured to get it into shape for an initial public offering in 2020.

The firm has about 3,000 employees and 72 retail shops across New Zealand. It has accumulated 2.4 million customers since it started operations in 1998, its website shows.

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