The FINANCIAL -- Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom on November 5 signed the final agreement to combine their UK operations, T-Mobile and Orange, into a 50:50 joint venture company.

Now that the confirmatory due diligence has been completed, this binding agreement confirms the terms of the transaction announced on 8 September 2009.

Completion is conditional upon approval by the relevant authorities and remains expected in the first half of 2010 as previously indicated. The agreement is subject to the approval of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Telekom and the Board of Directors of France Telecom. Timotheus Höttges, CFO of Deutsche Telekom, said: "This joint venture is based on the full commitment of Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom to a long term partnership. The negotiations were conducted in a fair way on both sides and I am certain that this spirit of professionalism and partnership will shape the future of our joint venture. It will set new standards as the number one in the UK mobile market."

Gervais Pellissier, deputy CEO in charge of Group Finance & Information Systems, said: "The relative terms of the transaction as announced on 8 September were fully confirmed. I would like to stress the excellent cooperation between the teams of Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom, which enabled us to deliver on the timing and process objectives which we set out in September. This is an important step towards our objective of establishing an excellent platform to deliver operational synergies and offer innovative and high quality services to our customers."

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