 Deutsche
Telekom and
France Telecom today signed the final agreement to combine their UK
operations,
T-Mobile and
Orange, into a 50:50 joint venture company. Now that the confirmatory due
diligence has been completed, this binding agreement confirms the terms of the
transaction
announced on 8 September 2009.
Completion is conditional upon approval by the relevant authorities and remains
expected in the first half of 2010 as previously indicated. The agreement is
subject to the approval of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Telekom and the
Board of Directors of France Telecom.
Timotheus Höttges, CFO of Deutsche Telekom, said: "This joint venture is
based on the full commitment of Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom to a
long term partnership. The negotiations were conducted in a fair way on both
sides and I am certain that this spirit of professionalism and partnership
will shape the future of our joint venture. It will set new standards as the
number one in the UK mobile market."
Gervais Pellissier, deputy CEO in charge of Group Finance & Information
Systems, said: "The relative terms of the transaction as announced on 8
September were fully confirmed. I would like to stress the excellent
cooperation between the teams of Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom, which
enabled us to deliver on the timing and process objectives which we set out
in September. This is an important step towards our objective of
establishing an excellent platform to deliver operational synergies and
offer innovative and high quality services to our customers."
T-Mobile offers a range of innovative products and services, such as Solo,
the SIM-only plan, Combi, a traditional minutes and text package, and Flext, the
UK's first flexible tariff. T-Mobile continues to innovate with new devices such
as the UK's first Android-based smart phone, the T-Mobile G1, and its successor
the T-Mobile G2, both with access to more than 1,000 applications. T-Mobile has
pioneered the mobile internet, and operates an award-winning 3G network with
speeds of up to 4.5 Mbps. As a pioneer of deep network sharing in the UK,
T-Mobile is continuously improving population coverage for 3G services and will
operate the best 3G network by the end of 2010.
In the UK, Orange provides high quality GSM coverage to 99 % of the UK
population. At the end of July 2009, Orange had almost 17 million customers in
the UK - 15.9 million active mobile customers and close to one million fixed
broadband customers.
The name of the new company wasn't announced today so it's up to your
guesses. Any suggestions?
Cheers ~ Arne
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