A stake in UK mobile operator EE could be floated at the end of next year, its 50/50 joint venture owner France Telecom has said.
Gervais Pellissier, CFO of FT, which jointly owns EE with Deutsche Telekom, told a conference yesterday that there were no…
A stake in UK mobile operator EE could be floated at the end of next year, its 50/50 joint venture owner France Telecom has said.
Gervais Pellissier, CFO of FT, which jointly owns EE with Deutsche Telekom, told a conference yesterday that there were no immediate plans to list the asset, although this was a possibility as it begins to realise cost synergies from the 2010 merger that created it.
In a separate interview with Bloomberg, FT CEO Stephane Richard confirmed it had also received interest from private equity firms for a minority stake in the UK unit.
Richard did not disclose specific PE firms, although reports in June suggested KKR and Apax were interested in acquiring EE, which has been valued at £8bn-£10bn.
After reaffirming that in any scenario both JV owners would want to keep control of the group, Richard said: “That said, there is a possibility that we can give ourselves some financial headroom by opening EE’s capital to a minority shareholder or through an IPO, but we haven’t yet decided.”
It is reportedly seen internally that an IPO process would be more likely than a sale to private equity.
FT declined to comment. Because the talks are in very early stages, it is thought that an adviser has not been appointed for any of the two processes.
A spokesperson for DT said no board decisions had been made on either an IPO or a sale to private equity firms.
EE was formed by merging FT and DT’s local operations, reducing the number of operators in the country from five to four. Since then, EE has been seen to move away from its JV owners by raising debt independently to pay back shareholder loans.
Selling a stake in EE would also provide a healthy boost for its JV owners as their operations in other markets come under pressure.
