Orange UK and T-mobile UK to merge

[andy]

Originally Posted by Motel75

And now there's some speculation about the future of 3:

3 has been rumoured to be in play even longer than T-mobile

There is an incompleteness to this report though. Vodafone and 3 have already made deals in other places, such as India. And describing something as Hutchison's strategy to exit from the UK somehow seems to leave out mentioning that they departed once, when they sold Orange here, then couldn't resist coming back.

They are right about Vodafone's competitive streak being aroused by rival acquisition deals though - think back to when Mannesmann bought Orange, then Vodafone really didn't like the idea of an Orange brand springing up in Germany and bought the lot.

[Motel75]

Originally Posted by andy

They are right about Vodafone's competitive streak being aroused by rival acquisition deals though - think back to when Mannesmann bought Orange, then Vodafone really didn't like the idea of an Orange brand springing up in Germany and bought the lot.

Funny how that is. Vodafone owned 30 percent of Mannesmann, who then went and bought Orange, one of Vodafone's competitors. This pissed Chris Gent off, a lot, as Mannesmann did it without asking. So Vodafone bought Mannesmann, and subsequently owned Orange outright. Of course, they had to divest it, so they sold it to a company that was a) willing to pay in cash and b) was probably not going to be a very good competitor; step forward, France Telecom (remember that Orange was previously thought of as a highly innovative company; t the time, the Economist urged Voda to sell Vodafone and brand everything else Orange instead!). So Orange has been owned by Hutchison, Mannesmann, Vodafone, and FT, and soon to be sort-of owned by Deutsche Telekom as well; that makes everyone except for O2...

But you are right, there have been several deals between Hutch and Voda over the years, and they've been trying to dump 3 for some time. So it seems likely that something could happen. I think Voda would be better off buying Plus in Poland, now that it's being practically handed to them, and slowly accumulating shares in Vivendi and Verizon for the day of reckoning with these irksome joint-venture "partners".