EE CFO Neal Milsom has stepped down following the completion of the £12.5bn (US$17.83bn) sale of the UK’s largest mobile operator to incumbent BT. As previously, announced, EE CEO Olaf Swantee has also departed and been replaced by chief commercial officer Marc Allera.
EE CFO Neal Milsom has stepped down following the completion of the £12.5bn (US$17.83bn) sale of the UK’s largest mobile operator to incumbent BT (LSE:BT).
EE said in a statement that Milsom (pictured) resigned as a director just ahead of the deal completion, after more than 15 years with the company. Stephen Harris, the chief of corporate and strategy, has subsequently been appointed as a director to the board.
EE credited Milsom for the “highly successful financial transformation of the business, following the creation of the UK joint venture between Orange and Deutsche Telekom in 2010”.
“As CFO of EE, Neal oversaw the rapid evolution to a secure and robust business with an independent financial profile, while driving substantial margin growth and completing a rigorous synergy programme, returning significant dividends to shareholders,” the carrier said.
BT had already announced, early this month, that EE CEO Olaf Swantee would depart once the transaction had closed. His replacement is Marc Allera, who has been EE’s chief commercial officer since 2011.
BT’s completion today of the EE deal, creating a converged telecoms and TV service provider, follows approval from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) mid-month. The watchdog cleared the deal with no conditions following a 10-month review.
However, BT is still awaiting the outcome of industry regulator Ofcom’s review of whether it should be allowed to keep its fixed-line infrastructure arm Openreach.
Opponents have argued that BT’s ownership of the network is a threat to competition as rivals rely on it as wholesale customers, and that it is also hampering network investment.
Earlier this week, UK politicians urged the telco to sell off Openreach, but BT CEO Gavin Patterson has previously argued that there is no case for doing so. Analysts generally believe BT will be allowed to keep the unit.
Ofcom’s report on the issue is expected next month.
Following the BT-EE deal completion, Orange (EPA:ORA), which had owned 50% of EE, said it had received £3.44bn (US$4.9bn) in cash and a 4% stake in the enlarged BT Group.
Deutsche Telekom, which owned the other half of EE, has received a 12% stake in the enlarged entity, and, as announced earlier this week, a board seat for its CEO, Timotheus Höttges. BT said the French and German incumbents had received £3.46bn (US$4.93bn) in cash in total.
The 1.59 billion new ordinary BT shares allotted to Orange and Deutsche Telekom as the stock component of the deal have now been admitted to trading on the London Stock Exchange, BT said in a separate filing.
