KPN takes full control of E-Plus

NEWS KPN has bought out BellSouth's 22.5 per cent stake in German mobile operator E-Plus to take complete control of the company. The move, however, was prompted by BellSouth which chose to cash in its holding in exchange for what works out as a 9.4 per cent holding in the Dutch telco. An alternative would have been to take a larger stake in KPN Mobile, already 15 per cent owned by NTT DoCoMo. Like the UK's BT, KPN has refocused on just a handful of markets, and is seeking ways of reducing a debt mountain. The company owes about Euro16bn - this before assuming a further Euro930m in debt associated with the BellSouth stake. US regional operator BellSouth is pairing down its interests in Europe. E-Plus is Germany's third largest mobile network. It may well now roll out mobile data services closely related to the i-mode service made popular by DoCoMo in Japan.