Orange bids for T-Mobile UK

Crashing piece of news #1 at the weekend was that Orange had bid unsuccessfully for T-Mobile UK. Sunday's Observer carried the news that Orange had been rebuffed and that Vodafone had also made advances, including proposing a swap deal for its Turkish operations (although even VF admit that Turkey needs a lot of work to turn it around). I have previously commented that I thought a UK consolidation was unlikely and I stick by that. It seems that the UK players aren't prepared to match DT's asking price. Unsurprising. Mind you, I would be surprised to hear that third parties hadn't at least made overtures about buying T-Mobile UK. It's worth knowing the sticker price.

Obviously this creates an interesting position for new incoming T-Mobile UK CEO Richard Moat, who was only installed a matter of weeks ago. No prizes for guessing where he came from. That's right, Orange. He was heading up their Romania operations after previous stints around the group including Denmark and Thailand.