Britain's BT has entered into exclusive talks with Orange and Deutsche Telekom to purchase EE for 12.5 billion pounds ($19.6 billion), opting for the country's biggest mobile operator over rival suitor, Telefonica's O2. BT had been in talks with Telefonica and EE's owners since late November about a deal to buy one of the operators, putting the British telecom firm in an unusually strong position to secure a deal to take it back into the consumer mobile market.BT said that if the deal completes Deutsche Telekom would hold a 12 percent stake in BT and would be entitled to appoint one board member, whereas Orange would hold a 4 percent stake. The French and German companies each owned 50 percent of EE.($1 = 0.6389 pounds)
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 fell by 1.5% or $-0.25/share to $16.39. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $11.80 and as high as $18.05. On average, 605931 shares of ORAN exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 363183.
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