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By Tony Hallett, 25 February 2004 08:15

NEWS Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin has spoken publicly for the first time about dramatically losing AT&T Wireless to Cingular, another US GSM operator.

While talk at this year’s 3GSM World Congress in Cannes – not least from Sarin – has inevitably focused on imminent third-generation mobile launches from established operators using the W-CDMA standard he spoke openly about the tense bidding war barely a week ago.

He told a packed conference that AT&T Wireless had been attractive because of its move to GSM – Vodafone's standard of choice around the world – its spectrum ownership, its base of mostly business customers and the fact that it put itself up for sale.

He said Vodafone's bid had the consent of Verizon, its partner in Verizon Wireless in the US.

"We said to ourselves: 'Shall we see if something can happen here?' We had to have full co-operation with Verizon Wireless. They were willing to release us," said Sarin, referring to anti-trust issues that would have forced a sale of its 45 per cent stake in the market leader to buy the third-placed player.

"We looked at AT&T Wireless and thought it was a company we could bring a lot of goodness to. We could add a lot of value.

"But Cingular can have AT&T Wireless at $15 a share."

In the lead up to any potential acquisition Vodafone shares were hammered on markets as many investors sold holdings, considering a deal at a high price bad business. Even now, pundits question whether Cingular – a joint venture between US regional Bell operating companies SBC Communications and BellSouth – has over paid.

Sarin added that his company’s strategy in the US is now "the same as it was 30 days ago", playing up recent gains in market share and bullishly predicting Verizon Wireless would continue to be the number one operator in the US, even after a Cingular-AT&T Wireless merger that would wrestle away any lead in subscriber numbers.

Eyes now turn once again to France, where Vodafone would prefer to control its own future as the sole owner of SFR rather than as a stakeholder.

Referring to posturing by SFR parent Vivendi, Sarin said: "Over time we will have SFR be part of the Vodafone family."

Details of any move – hostile or otherwise – weren’t forthcoming.