BT to buy EE for £12 billion

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/medi...

BT has agreed to buy EE from its owners, Deutsche Telekom and Orange, for £12bn.

It is understood that the deal, paid for with a combination of cash and BT stock, will be confimed this evening.

So what? Who care about BT?

BT said that if the deal completes Deutsche Telekom would hold a 12 percent stake in BT and would be entitled to appoint one board member, whereas Orange would hold a 4 percent stake. The French and German companies each owned 50 percent of EE.

So one over priced company with rubbish CS, has been bought by another over piced company with rubbish CS, should be a seamless merger.

I think EE have a white-label deal with BT who provide the CS already

I feel Ofcom may be reluctant to allow BT to be the most dominant mobile provider as well as the most dominant fixed-line provider. It will be an interesting one. I think BT buying O2 would have been an easier "sell" to the regulator.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

So what? Who care about BT?

Given your ISP is owned by them, and your land line and broadband use their infrastructure you may wish to start caring.

Seems BT no longer wants to be in the background and now wants to be a big player in the communications game.

If BT buy EE then it wouldn't surprise me if Sky snapped up the rest of O2... or maybe Virgin might buy someone!!

Either way it doesn't matter as all companies are just as bad as each other, some are just a little bit less bad.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

If BT buy EE then it wouldn't surprise me if Sky snapped up the rest of O2... or maybe Virgin might buy someone!!

Virgin can't buy anyone they were recently bought themselves. They are going to be a takeover target.

Oh yeah of course!

In reply to a post by adslmax:

So what? Who care about BT?

Well you do - since you are seemingly forever posting negative comments about them on this forum.

Another company BT will screw up and make things worse i'm sure

Look at BT's next finger in pie .

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Look at BT's next finger in pie .

Methinks BT has far too much money to burn.

So has Sky.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

So has Sky.

Indeed. However unlike Sky, BT via Openreach have a healthy monopoly they can exploit.

In a shrinking 51.9% of the UK, alt nets and VM expansion (0.1% KC) is eating into that and then the small matter than while its Openreach infrastructure that is the monopoly you do have a choice of retail providers, which is a big difference to the monopolies that exist abroad from many incumbents.

Well I for one support the continuing calls for Openreach to be split from BT Group.

http://www.cityam.com/1417054313/watchdog-could-be-a...

So, if BT put their customers under Plusnet umbrella. Would this mean BT contract customers could move away without penalty.

In reply to a post by flippery:

So, if BT put their customers under Plusnet umbrella. Would this mean BT contract customers could move away without penalty.

Why would they want to do that?

Putting EE fixed line broadband customers under the PlusNet umbrella is a possible outcome and maybe what they meant.

Does it mean leaving without penalty? Only if there is a change to the price or terms of service.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

Seems BT no longer wants to be in the background and now wants to be a big player in the communications game.

If BT buy EE then it wouldn't surprise me if Sky snapped up the rest of O2... or maybe Virgin might buy someone!!

The most likely purchaser of o2 would be TalkTalk, not Sky. Vodafone is actually in talks with Sky about linking up to try and minimise BT's effect into pay TV.

In reply to a post by JonDav:

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

Seems BT no longer wants to be in the background and now wants to be a big player in the communications game.

If BT buy EE then it wouldn't surprise me if Sky snapped up the rest of O2... or maybe Virgin might buy someone!!

The most likely purchaser of o2 would be TalkTalk, not Sky. Vodafone is actually in talks with Sky about linking up to try and minimise BT's effect into pay TV.

While I agree on the Vodafone and Sky merger or take over, I don't quiet know why TalkTalk would be a more likely candidate for O2, Though the only other company I could emagine taking O2 would be Virgin but as mentioned above they can't.

Personally I wouldn't suggest anybody buy O2, they can't seem to provide rubbish service everywhere and nothing in town centres... I cleared one of their stores in Crawley earlier after telling everyone that there network was currently not working and has never worked well for me when traveling across the whole UK.

As a point of interest I don't see that quote in the linked article, and what The Times says seems more likely to me. The exclusive nature of the talks will continue for "several weeks".

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

In reply to a post by JonDav:

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

Seems BT no longer wants to be in the background and now wants to be a big player in the communications game.

If BT buy EE then it wouldn't surprise me if Sky snapped up the rest of O2... or maybe Virgin might buy someone!!

The most likely purchaser of o2 would be TalkTalk, not Sky. Vodafone is actually in talks with Sky about linking up to try and minimise BT's effect into pay TV.

While I agree on the Vodafone and Sky merger or take over, I don't quiet know why TalkTalk would be a more likely candidate for O2, Though the only other company I could emagine taking O2 would be Virgin but as mentioned above they can't.

TalkTalk already are in partnership with O2 who are providing 2G, 3G and 4G services for TalkTalk. It would make sense for TalkTalk to actually buy O2 for its' network infrastructure, and O2 has effectively put itself up for sale with its' approach to BT.

It is very possible that Hutchison_Whampoa will be interested in buying O2 under the Three banner. That's what happened to O2 Ireland.

That would be amusing, as they used to own Orange.

In reply to a post by JonDav:

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

In reply to a post by JonDav:

... nested quotes trimmed ...

The most likely purchaser of o2 would be TalkTalk, not Sky. Vodafone is actually in talks with Sky about linking up to try and minimise BT's effect into pay TV.

While I agree on the Vodafone and Sky merger or take over, I don't quiet know why TalkTalk would be a more likely candidate for O2, Though the only other company I could emagine taking O2 would be Virgin but as mentioned above they can't.

TalkTalk already are in partnership with O2 who are providing 2G, 3G and 4G services for TalkTalk. It would make sense for TalkTalk to actually buy O2 for its' network infrastructure, and O2 has effectively put itself up for sale with its' approach to BT.

O2 was only just aware that TT and O2 had an agreement for Mobile, I thought they where still using Vodafone!

Edited by mlmclaren (Tue 16-Dec-14 17:28:02)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

It is very possible that Hutchison_Whampoa will be interested in buying O2 under the Three banner. That's what happened to O2 Ireland. That would be amusing, as they used to own Orange.

I hope not. Hard to keep up with these megadeals. I bought a PAYG smartphone from Tesco (I know, I know ) which was fine until Tesco switched supplier from Vodafone to O2. The phone is locked to Tesco for a year so I can't switch supplier even though the O2 coverage is poor compared to Vodafone and at home I have no signal at all. My wife on Three has far better coverage and pays 3p per minute compared with my 8p on Tesco.

But if Three bought O2 maybe yours would end up (after a while) as good as your wife's?

The words 'pigs' and 'flying' come to mind ...

In reply to a post by JonDav:

TalkTalk already are in partnership with O2 who are providing 2G, 3G and 4G services for TalkTalk. It would make sense for TalkTalk to actually buy O2 for its' network infrastructure, and O2 has effectively put itself up for sale with its' approach to BT.

It would be O2 buying TalkTalk were a deal to happen. O2 have an enterprise value 4 times that of TalkTalk right now.

Far from impossible of course; Telefonica may decide to execute the takeover and spin the resultant business unit off.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

In reply to a post by JonDav:

TalkTalk already are in partnership with O2 who are providing 2G, 3G and 4G services for TalkTalk. It would make sense for TalkTalk to actually buy O2 for its' network infrastructure, and O2 has effectively put itself up for sale with its' approach to BT.

It would be O2 buying TalkTalk were a deal to happen. O2 have an enterprise value 4 times that of TalkTalk right now.

Far from impossible of course; Telefonica may decide to execute the takeover and spin the resultant business unit off.

One fly in that particular jar of ointment: Telefonica is sitting on a massive pile of debt, which is why they wanted to sell o2 to BT. Telefonica are in no position to raise capital to buy TalkTalk, nor would they want to.

TalkTalk could put together a shares and cash deal (i.e. giving Telefonica a holding in the new company, plus some cash), or have a rights issue or share placement, in a what would end up a much bigger company.

Edited by deleted (Wed 17-Dec-14 01:17:26)