Mobile phone operators eye T-Mobile UK
VODAFONE and Spain’s Telefonica, the owner of O2, are understood to have tabled conditional offers of around £3.5bn to buy T-Mobile UK.
The sale of the Deutsche Telekom unit to either party would create the UK’s largest mobile operator – once its 16.6m customers were added to theirs – and both offers are believed to include concessions aimed at appeasing industry regulators worried about competition.
If successful, O2 would claim a 43 per cent share of UK mobile revenues, buoyed by its exclusive tie-up with the Apple iPhone.
But it is believed that Deutsche Telekom chief executive Rene Obermann is reluctant to sell at £3.5bn because it would result in a second writedown on the value of the division, and would prefer to see T-Mobile UK merge with France Telecom’s Orange.
A tie-up with Orange is viewed by some as the more likely option for T-Mobile UK, which recently appointed ex-Orange veteran Richard Moat as its chief executive.
Moat has adamantly denied that he was brought in to oversee a quick sale and has said he is committed to a “long-term restructuring” of the business.