BT has entered into exclusive talks to acquire UK mobile operator EE from Deutsche Telekom and Orange for GBP 12.5 billion in cash and new shares. Under the non-binding terms agreed, Deutsche Telekom would hold 12 percent of BT and would be entitled to appoint a member to the BT board. Orange would own 4 percent of BT and receive a higher proportion of cash to preserve an equal split of the net proceeds from the sale of EE. The period of exclusivity will last several weeks to allow BT to complete due diligence and for negotiations on a definitive agreement to be reached.
While continuing discussions, BT said it will progress its own plans for providing enhanced fixed-mobile converged services for businesses and consumers, in line with previous announcements, and remains confident of delivering on these plans should a transaction not take place.
BT expects significant synergies mainly through network and IT rationalisation, back-office consolidation and savings on procurement, marketing and sales costs. In addition, BT expects to generate revenue synergies through selling fixed-line services to EE customers who do not currently take a service from BT, and by accelerating the sale of converged fixed-mobile services to BT’s existing consumer and business customers.
