Orange has ditched plans to take part in any tie-ups in the French telecoms market, the former monopoly said on Wednesday.Orange said in May it was examining what role it could play in such deal-making, and sources told Reuters that it had held informal talks with third-place mobile operator Bouygues Telecom ."Orange... believes that it cannot pursue this avenue at the present time as the conditions that the group has set have not been met," the company said in a statement.A source familiar with the matter said Bouygues was seeking too high a price for its telecom unit. To appease potential antitrust concerns, Orange had also tried to bring in upstart operator Iliad into the talks but the three parties could not find a common ground.
Orange SA, formerly France Telecom SA, is a France-based company that is engaged, principally, in the provision of integrated telecommunications services. Shares of ORAN traded higher by 2.09% or $0.33/share to $16.13. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $9.10 and as high as $17.43. On average, 562506 shares of ORAN exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 470815.
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