New Zealand’s Sky Television and UK-owned mobile phone company Vodafone have agreed to merge their New Zealand businesses in the second proposed media merger in a month. The deal will have Vodafone emerge with a controlling stake in Sky, meaning it will revert to being foreign-controlled for a second time. News Corp sold its substantial minority stake in early 2013 ahead of the split in the Murdoch empire at the end of June of that year.

The latest deal is effectively a partial takeover of Sky TV by Britain’s Vodafone Group and comes after APN News and Media announced the spin-off its Kiwi print and radio interests, and then the merging of those with of Fairfax Media. That deal is still in the planning stage with regulators, led by the NZ Commerce Commission being asked for approval of what seems, on the surface, to be a competition reducing transaction.

Sky TV will first “buy” Vodafone New Zealand in a deal that would value the loss-making telecommunications firm at a massive NZ$3.4 billion. But the British-based Vodafone Group will emerge with a 51% stake in the combined business, putting it control of the combined business.  Vodafone NZ boss Russell Stanners will be CEO of the merged firm, while Sky TV boss John Fellet has agreed to stay on for two years as chief executive of its pay television arm (he is the biggest loser from the deal).

Like the APN and the Fairfax deals, this transaction deal will need shareholder and Commerce Commission approval. But what is odd is that in the space of several months Vodafone NZ has gone from being a possible seller of its assets to TPG, the rapidly growing Australian telco, to being the dominant media/telco firm in the country — which is quite a turnaround.