BT Wireless lands £3.5bn loan

NEWS BT Wireless will later this week confirm that it has secured a £3.5bn loan to help with the building of its 3G mobile phone network. Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche, HSBC, JP Morgan and the Royal Bank of Scotland are to provide the massive sum in two instalments, according to a report in the Observer. BT Wireless will be re-branded as O2 and demerged from its parent company in November. The new company could be valued up to £15bn and will only be lumbered with around £500m of BT's £17.5bn debt. O2 is also expected to announce a network-sharing partner in the Netherlands. BT has already agreed the sharing of costs with Deutsche Telekom for 3G networks in the UK and Germany. The paper also claims that Pierre Danon, currently the CEO of BT's retail division, is set to replace Sir Peter Bonfield as chief executive officer of the telco after the mobile division's merger.