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

To: MrGreenJeans who wrote (2532)	2/17/2000 5:50:00 AM
From: David Wiggins	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3175

Airtel delays key meeting as BT-Vodafone tussle MADRID, Feb 15 (Reuters) - A long-running tussle between British Telecom (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BT.L) and Vodafone AirTouch (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: VOD.L) for control of Spain's second biggest mobile phone company Airtel looks set to run a little longer after the company said it would postpone a crucial shareholders meeting. An Airtel spokesman said on Tuesday that the meeting -- which had been due to discuss and possibly agree on complex rules governing the sale of shares in the company -- would be delayed beyond its previously scheduled date of February 22. The spokesman said Vodafone, which holds 21.7 percent of the 24-billion-euro rated Airtel and has just clinched the takeover of Germany's Mannesmann AG , had asked for the meeting to be delayed because it had a ``busy diary.' He said Airtel's board might meet later this week to set a new date for the shareholders meeting. Under the company's statutes, the company's board must publish the date of a shareholders meeting two weeks before it can be held. Vodafone has offered to give a stake in its own capital to Spain's Banco Santander Central Hispano in exchange for the bank's 30.45 percent stake in Airtel. BT, which owns 17.8 percent of Airtel, has also offered its shares to BSCH. But Vodafone seems to have the better chance after negotiating an options deal with three small Airtel shareholders who hold about 17 percent of the operator. Also, BSCH -- hoping to match a new strategic e-banking deal between rival Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria and Spain's leading telecoms group Telefonica -- has said it favours swapping ``mobiles for mobiles.' Vodafone, unlike BT, is an exclusively mobile company. However, the sale process appears to have been held up pending disagreement among Airtel's shareholders on whether any sale or swap of shares in the company must be offered to all the shareholders.