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Technology Stocks : Vodafone-Airtouch (NYSE: VOD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David Wiggins who wrote (2240)	12/23/1999 11:12:00 PM
From: MrGreenJeans	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3175

BT Ups Vodafone's Spanish Bid - FT LONDON (Reuters) - British Telecommunications Plc has made an 11th hour bid to raise its stake in Spanish mobile phone operator Airtel, upping a prior offer by rival Vodafone AirTouch, the Financial Times said on Friday. The newspaper said BT's counter-offer was made to Spain's biggest bank, Banco Santander Central Hispano (BSCH), for its 30.5 percent holding in Airtel. In the front-page story it said the bid thwarted Vodafone's deal worth 4.5 billion pounds ($7.25 billion) under which the British cellphone giant would have given some five percent of its equity to BSCH in exchange for the latter's stake in Airtel. A BT spokesman in London told Reuters: ``We never comment on speculation of this sort.' ``The gloves are off. BT is going to fight Vodafone every inch for Airtel,' the Financial Times quoted a Madrid banker close to the deal as saying. The Spanish tussle is a sideshow for Vodafone as it battles to take control of Germany's Mannesmann AG. On Thursday, Vodafone's chief executive Chris Gent was in Duesseldorf to formally launch the hostile bid for Mannesmann -- the biggest in history at $132 billion. Both BT and Vodafone already have minority stakes in Airtel, Spain's second biggest mobile phone operator, and BSCH is the largest single investor. The Financial Times said BT may have made its move to buttress an agreement between Airtel's core shareholders -- like Vodafone -- that any additional acquisition of equity by any of them must be shared out equally between all. Industry sources told Reuters earlier this month that both BT and Vodafone wanted to control the fast-growing Airtel business. Some sources said a shake-out could leave the two British-based groups with joint control if BSCH decided to sell its stake