Everything Everywhere to sell spectrum in UK

Everything Everywhere, the combined UK operations of France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom, will in the next month begin a rare auction of spectrum that can be used for next generation mobile services in a process that could raise as much as £400 million ($619 million).

Everything Everywhere, which operates the Orange and T-Mobile brands in the UK, is in exclusive discussions to appoint Royal Bank of Scotland to oversee the process, according to people familiar with the plan. The sale mandate is expected to be confirmed next week, with plans to begin the sale shortly afterwards. Bankers with knowledge of the deal expect the sale to generate up to £400m, although one source said that it was difficult to gauge the exact price ahead of discussions with bidders. Everything Everywhere has been forced to sell some of its spectrum by European competition authorities after the merger of Orange and T-Mobile to create Britain’s largest mobile operator by subscribers. A share of the 1,800 MHz spectrum is regarded by industry specialists as valuable given it can be used for the provision of data services crucial to the future of the industry.