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

To: MrGreenJeans who wrote (2800)	5/29/2000 11:43:00 AM
From: MrGreenJeans	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3175

France Telecom wins Orange Vodafone Airtouch puts final touches to œ30bn deal David Teather, Media business correspondent Monday May 29, 2000 Advisers to Vodafone-AirTouch were last night scrambling to finalise details of the œ30bn sale of Orange, the mobile phone network, to France Telecom. The deal is expected to be presented to shareholders at Vodafone's annual results meeting tomorrow and will be made up of cash and France Telecom shares of around œ24bn. The French company will assume a further œ6bn in debt, including the cost of Orange's third generation mobile licence the British company won in the recent state-sponsored auction. If the transaction goes through it will be third time lucky for the French company which has long made its intention to enter the British market clear. France Telecom tried and failed to acquire One2One which ultimately fell to Deutsche Telekom and, through NTL in which it has a significant stake, was the last to drop out of the running for the fifth licence in the recent third generation auction. The former state-owned monopoly is the leading mobile operator in its domestic market, where it has 10m subscribers, but has failed so far to build any scale outside of France. Advisers though were cautioning that the sale was still not yet a done deal. France Telecom is expected to pool its mobile assets and relist a minority stake on the London and Paris stock exchanges - a move which would likely defuse a potential dispute with Orange chief executive Hans Snook who has lobbied hard to retain a degree of autonomy. Mr Snook is understood to have conducted separate negotiations with France Telecom and has taken the gamble of letting it be known that he would otherwise quit the company. Vodafone acquired Orange when it won the fiercely contested battle for Germany's Mannesmann. The subsequent sale or demerger of Orange was a condition imposed by regulators in Europe but will represent a tidy profit for Vodafone. Mannesmann acquired Orange for just œ19.8bn last October. The gain in value in the eight months since Mannesmann agreed to acquire Orange in the face of a slump in world markets underlines the long term value being ascribed to mobile phone companies. It is understood that Vodafone will arrange the cash and shares mix so it ends up with less than 10% of France Telecom. Those shares will be divested as and when Vodafone needs the extra cash. Hans Snook, chief executive of Orange, can afford to play hardball. As often seen in his trademark leather blazer and Orange cufflinks as a conventional suit, Mr Snook has made no secret of what he wants from France Telecom - a separate stock market listing of the business and full management control. Advisers to the company who slavishly intone the Snook mantras would like to believe that the man who admittedly has been key to the success of the business is now pivotal in its sale. His brief unhappy experience with Mannesmann was a clear indication that Mr Snook doesn't like playing by other people's rules. Mannesmann believed in fixed and wireless integration, Mr Snook as anyone who has spent more than five minutes in his company will know, believes in a fully wirefree future. Mr Snook made an estimated œ45m from the deal. If all goes according to plan, his bank account is likely to swell further - one report yesterday suggested to œ100m.