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

To: MrGreenJeans who wrote (2536)	2/17/2000 7:55:00 AM
From: MrGreenJeans	Respond to of 3175

Vodafone, BT mull Airtel exit By Tom Burns in Madrid and Alan Cane in London - 17 Feb 2000 02:17GMT Negotiations between Vodafone AirTouch, the world's largest mobile phone group, and British Telecommunications could lead to BT exiting amicably from Airtel, Spain's second largest mobile telephony company, in which the two UK operators have significant minority stakes. People familiar with the talks say that Vodafone has also undertaken to use Airtel as the spearhead of a drive into mobile telephony in Latin America once it has gained control of the Spanish operator. The largest shareholder in Airtel is the big Spanish bank BSCH, which is thought to be keen to exchange its 30 per cent stake in the company for a stake in Vodafone. BSCH has a large franchise in Latin America. Negotiations over the future of Airtel have been in progress for some months. In addition to BSCH and the two UK operators, the company is owned by a group of smaller Spanish shareholders linked in complex shareholder agreements. A shareholder meeting scheduled for next week to resolve the ownership question has been postponed at Vodafone's request in order to allow it to iron out details of its negotiations with BT. "We expect the dispute to be satisfactorily concluded in Vodafone's favour towards the middle of March," sources close to Airtel's Spanish shareholders said yesterday. Both Vodafone and BT on Wednesday refused to comment on likely developments beyond agreeing that talks were continuing. The core of the talks between the two UK rivals involves the unravelling of the shareholder pact. The pact prevents its members from buying or selling their Airtel equity without first offering the shares, purchased or sold, to each other on an equitable basis. Vodafone gained a breakthrough last month when it secured a "put" option with the pact's Spanish partners to buy their combined 16.9 per cent in Airtel should they decide to sell their stakes. The option agreement valued the unlisted operator, which accounts for more than 30 per cent of Spain's fast growing mobile market, at E24bn ($23.6bn). In order to conclude an agreement with BSCH, and thereby lift its stake in Airtel to 53.2 per cent, Vodaphone would have to negotiate the compen-sation it will have to pay BT as the price for breaking up the existing shareholder pact.