New Orange chief bats away cross-border merger rumours
The new Orange boss Christel Heydemann batted away rumours that the telecoms giant was looking at cross-border mergers, stating that the firm was looking at strengthening in current markets rather than expanding.
“Orange’s strategy doesn’t involve cross-border, European consolidation, or a big M&A project,” Heydemann said in her first news conference.
“We have a lot of value in the business that we can already bring to our existing customers in our existing geographies,” she added.
Orange is in exclusive merger talks with its Spanish rival MasMovil and El Pais reported that negotiations are scheduled close in the first half of this year.
The new entity would take the form of a 50-50 joint venture with a combined enterprise value of €19.6bn, the two companies said in a statement.
Heydemann notably took over the top spot from Stephane Richard at the beginning of this month after the former chief exec resigned after being found guilty by French courts for aiding and abetting in the misuse of public funds.