T-Mobile UK and Orange UK officially ink merge agreement

06 November 2009

Parent companies Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom sign final papers to combine the two telcos in a 50:50 venture

Quick update on the T-Mobile/Orange merge - parent companies Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom today signed the agreement to merge their UK operator arms into a 50:50 joint venture company, officially binding the transaction first announced in September.

The merge is expected to be completed in the first half of 2010, subject to the approval of the boards of both parent companies.

The resulting company will become the UK's largest operator over previous top dogs O2 and Vodafone, with around 37% of the market.

The official lines from both sides below.

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."