Telefonica would have to consider its options regarding its UK presence, including a sale of the O2 business, if more of the market moves to bundling fixed and mobile telecom services, a top executive said on Thursday. Telefonica, which bought O2 in 2006, has said the UK business remains core but has not ruled out asset sales to meet a year-end debt target of below 43 billion euros ($54 billion)."If the market goes convergent then we will need to evaluate our options," Telefonica's chief operating officer, Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete, told the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in Barcelona, when asked about a potential sale of its O2 business in the UK.O2, which trails EE in Britain, was performing well, Alvarez-Pallete said, with average revenue per user growing and churn rates on customer retention lower.However, the mobile market could be shaken up by the expected return next year of BT, the original owner of O2, and a bigger push by the likes of cable firm Virgin Media into making bundled offers of TV, fixed line broadband and mobile services.
Morgan Stanley is a global financial services company that, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, provides its products and services to a range of clients and customers, including corporations, governments, financial institutions and individuals. Shares of MS traded higher by 0.03% or $0.01/share to $35.48. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $28.31 and as high as $36.44. On average, 9982050 shares of MS exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 5748663.
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