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To: Valueman who wrote (3216)	3/1/1999 7:16:00 PM
From: djane	Respond to of 29987

CWI. Merger creates mobile megapower totaltele.com The merger of Vodafone and AirTouch ranks the new company at number six in the league of telecomms providers worldwide. Capitalised at $110 billion, the new entity now yields a subscriber base of 23.3 million, of which 43% are outside the two home markets. The Yankee Group describes the strategic fit of the two companies as "among the clearest and most attractive of all the proposed high-profile telecomms mergers of the last two years". The company will save $330 million (after taxes) by 2000, a result of better leverage with suppliers and optimised network call routing across Europe. And it is poised to capture more market share as 3G technologies come on-stream, an issue it has taken up at the ITU. Although there is the small regulatory detail of two overlapping properties in Germany (see map), CEO Chris Gent said it would dispose of its 17.2% money-losing stake in E-Plus within six months. In the wake of the failed BT-MCI merger, Vodafone's swift and neat agreement to merge with AirTouch is a credit to its Newbury, UK-centred management, headed by the no-nonsense Gent. The merger of equals was no hard sell to Vodafone shareholders, not least because of AirTouch's high-performing global assets. In this marriage, Vodafone will benefit from the Midas touch of its American better half. Whereas Vodafone has focused on executives and international travellers, AirTouch has distinguished itself in diverse markets by its branding and domestic mass marketing, the next frontier of growth for mobile cellular voice. "That's one thing they can learn from us - how to serve customers," Sam Ginn, now chairman of Vodafone AirTouch told CI, quickly adding, "and we can learn about business markets from them." Vineeta Shetty C O M M U N I C A T I O N S© I N T E R N A T I O N A L