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Buy-out firms compete for Deutsche Telekom's antennas unit

Rival buy-out firms including Carlyle Group and Permira are competing for Deutsche Telekom's antennas unit with bids likely to be in excess of $2bn.

US Carlyle has joined forces with UK-based Apax Partners, whilst UK Permira has teamed up with US Providence Equity Partners. All of the private equity firms involved, except Permira, have previously acquired assets from European phone companies.

Apax and Providence teamed up earlier this year to buy six cable-television networks from Deutsche Telekom for in the region of E2.1bn. Providence and Carlyle jointly acquired France Telecom's Dutch cable television unit, Casema, for E665m last year.

Apax also joined forces with Hicks, Muse,Tate & Furst in 2001 to buy BT's yellow pages business. Seat Pagine Gialle, the Italian telephone directories business, and Herold business Data, a yellow pages business jointly owned by Verizon Communications and Telekom Austria, have also attracted significant attention from high profile private equity firms from both sides of the Atlantic this year.

Deutsche Telekom plans to sell its antennas business in order to reduce the company's debt burden from E61.1bn at the end of 2002 to about E50bn this year, according to a report from Bloomberg.

There is a growing trend for European telephone companies to shed non-core assets in an attempt to reduce the debt amassed from buying third generation mobile phone licences.

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