msmobiles.com - Cellular News - Orange to become 100% French

Orange to become 100% French
April 10, 2004;
for some Brits it is hard to comprehend that Orange - operator initially conceived and created in UK - is a French company...

France Telecom can now buy the remaining shares of Orange mobile phone operator (it already owns over 90% of it) because French court ruled this that claims of minority share holders were unfounded.

The official statement from France Telecom says:

"France Telecom intends to finalise, under the conditions initially set out, the transaction on Orange while respecting the interests of shareholders."

Once the transaction will be completed the shares of Orange will be de-listed from stock markets - Orange will exist no more "stock market -wise" but will be just 100% subsidiary of France Telecom - French telecommunication monopoly, owned partially by state of France.

Usually we couldn't care less what a state owned monopoly -like company is doing, but since Orange was the first mobile operator in the world that started selling Microsoft smartphones, we publish this information - it may be interesting for some users, who may, in this situation, prefer British operators like O2...

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