France Telecom/Amena Very Amenable

France Telecom nearly bankrupted itself by taking on too much debt to fund foreign acquisitions during the bubble. But just a few years later it is buying assets abroad again with the acquisition of Amena, Spain’s third-ranked mobile operator, in a E10.6bn deal. Investors will obviously be worried that its new foreign adventure might end in disaster. So what has FT done to allay these fears? The French group has persuaded Amena’s vendors to jump through hoops to make the deal more easily digest...