France Tel. prices Sprint

May 31, 2001
Web posted at: 0732 GMT

LONDON (CNN) -- France Telecom said it expects to raise $1.6 billion from the sale of its stake in Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. long-distance phone company.

The Paris-based company plans to sell 75.9 million Sprint (FON: Research, Estimates) shares, as well as options on its remaining 11.4 million Sprint shares if demand is high. The shares are priced at $19 each.

The sale will end a bumpy seven-year relationship with the U.S. phone company. France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom (FDTE) made the investment in 1994 as a way to seal a three-way international venture.

Sprint was hoping to set up a more global communication partnership but problems among the carriers caused the alliance to fizzle.

France Telecom (PFTE) has said it plans to reduce its debt to 30 to 40 billion by 2002-03, by selling 15 to 20 billion of non-strategic assets and its own shares which it bought back from Vodafone Group (VOD), the biggest wireless operator, earlier this year.

France's dominant phone company, which has built up debts of about 60 billion through the acquisition of high-speed mobile phone licences, expects a pretax gain of 600 million from the sale of its 9.9 percent stake in Sprint.

		Want the full story? Search for free Company Info...
		Enter Company Name:-

2 Euro telecoms selling $3.7B Sprint stake
May 16, 2001

France Telecom, Deutsche Telekom to offload Sprint stake - May 17, 2001

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.