Back in the bid business

Bids must really be back in fashion. Even telecoms companies have started buying their rivals. Cable & Wireless has just bought Energis for £810m; France Telecom recently spent nearly E11bn (£7.2bn) on Amena, a Spanish mobile operator; and Deutsche Telekom has bought Austria’s tele.ring. The German operator has even disclosed that it had talks with KPN of the Netherlands about a bid for Britain’s O2 – although those have since terminated. All these companies had their cheque books firmly ripped...