BT Set To Buy EE Mobile Phone Network
The broadband and landline provider looks to return to the mobile market as it signs an exclusivity deal for the purchase of EE.
Monday 15 December 2014 17:16, UK
BT has announced that it wants to buy phone firm EE as it makes a play to re-enter the mobile market.
The company has been in negotiations with EE and rival O2, but BT announced a decision on Monday to go with EE.
The deal is worth £12.5bn.
In a statement BT said it had "entered into an exclusivity agreement with Deutsche Telekom and Orange in relation to BT’s possible acquisition of all of their UK mobile business, EE".
"The period of exclusivity will last several weeks allowing BT to complete its due diligence and for negotiations on a definitive agreement to be concluded."
EE is the UK's largest mobile group which has 27 million customers.
It was formed in 2010 in a joint venture between French operator Orange and Germany's Deutsche Telekom.
BT is Britain's biggest broadband and landline provider and has been looking to expand into so-called "quad play", offering landline, broadband, pay TV and mobile services.
"They might spend more money buying EE (than O2) but EE offers more opportunities," James Allison, a senior analyst in telecommunications at HIS, told Sky's Ian King.
"It is a bigger operator, but more importantly it has better radio spectrum so they'll be able to offer more mobile service to more customers."
The planned purchase comes more than a decade after BT was forced to sell its mobile operations to reduce a multi-billion pound debt pile.
The deal is now likely to face scrutiny by the regulator Ofcom.