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U.K. incumbent issues new shares to Orange, Deutsche Telekom in line with 12.5 billion mobile takeover.
As expected, BT on Friday completed its £12.5 billion acquisition of EE, creating a strong quad-play provider with Deutsche Telekom and Orange among its shareholders.
"BT announces that completion of its acquisition of EE Limited took place today," said BT, in a stock exchange filing.
In return for their stakes in the mobile operator, Deutsche Telekom and Orange received £3.46 billion in cash and holdings equating to 12% and 4% respectively of BT’s share capital. Orange received the bulk of the cash in order to maintain an even split of the net proceeds of the sale.
BT also confirmed that Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Hoettges has joined its board.
The completion of the transaction comes two weeks after the U.K. competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) gave its final approval to the deal.
The merger brings together the U.K.’s largest fixed telecoms business with its largest mobile telecoms business, but "is not expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition (SLC) in any market or markets in the U.K.," the CMA said at the time, noting that there is limited overlap between BT and EE.
Upon closing the deal, EE confirmed that CFO Neal Milsom has stepped down in addition to CEO Olaf Swantee, who announced his departure earlier in January.
Furthermore, Orange’s head of Europe and deputy CEO, Gervais Pellissier, and its head of M&A Arnaud Castille, have resigned from EE’s board, as have Deutsche Telekom CFO Thomas Dannenfeldt, and its head of corporate development Thorsten Langheim.
Meanwhile, BT is expected to outline its plans for EE when it reports its latest financial results next week.
This story was updated at 12:12 to include the management changes at EE.
