Mannesmann caves in to Vodafone bid

NEWS The Mannesmann management board has agreed to a takeover by UK mobile conglomerate, Vodafone Airtouch. The board announced their decision just before midnight last night to accept an offer of $176bn from Vodafone, making the deal the largest ever take-over. The combined companies will rank among IT giants such as Microsoft and Cisco Systems with a value of $350bn and leave it dominating the telecoms market, with 54 million customers across 25 countries, in five continents. The deal is yet to be ratified by the Mannesmann supervisory board, as well as the UK's own monopolies regulators, which are certain to demand the selling off of Mannesmann subsidiary Orange. The Mannesmann management board was swayed by Vodafone CEO, Chris Gent offering their shareholders an extra five shares for every share in the German telco they held. Mannesmann shareholders will now own 49.5 per cent of the company instead of the 42.2 per cent they were originally offered.