Britain’s BT Group could offer at least €6 billion to Spanish peer Telefonica on top of a 20 per cent stake in its share capital for the O2 mobile network, Spanish online newspaper El Confidencial reported.
Telecoms giant BT is in talks with Telefonica about buying the O2 mobile network from the Spanish firm.
Including the €6 billion, the total value of the deal would be around €14 billion, less than the £18 billion Telefonica paid to buy O2 in 2006.
Both BT and Telefonica declined to comment. Shares in BT were 1.5 per cent higher while Telefonica shares were up 0.6 per cent this morning.
Telefonica has produced an 18-page document detailing the conditions for the deal and potential cost savings of integrating O2 into BT, the online newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources.
Telefonica has said that O2 remains core to its business but it has not ruled out asset sales to meet a target to reduce debt to less than €43 billion by the end of the year.
A deal would bring O2 back to the BT group, having been spun off from the former British telecoms monopoly in 2001 and then bought by Telefonica in 2006.
