Orange has completed the sale of its residual participation in BT Group for a net amount of GBP 486 million. The company said that it would sell approximately 248 million BT shares through a private placement, representing around 2.5 percent of the group’s share capital, with settlement planned for 02 July. Of the total shares, around 41 million have been acquired by BT. Orange had previously said that BT would participate in the sale with a GBP 80 million irreducible order at the placement price.
On completion of the sale, Orange will no longer hold a stake in BT and have any exposure to the shares of the UK group. In June 2017, the company moved to reduce its exposure to BT's shares with two transactions. It sold a third of the stake it held at the time and issued convertible bonds exchangeable into BT shares. This second transaction represented another third of its participation in BT. Orange has also confirmed that it recently exercised its exchange rights on all bonds issued in mid-2017.
The stake in BT was acquired in 2015 as partial payment for the acquisition of EE, the mobile operator jointly owned by Orange and Deutsche Telekom. Telekom still holds a 12 percent stake in BT.
