The Lisbon government has vetoed Telefónica’s €7.15bn bid to buy out Portugal Telecom from Vivo, a Brazil-based mobile phone joint venture.

The government used Portugal’s ‘golden shares’ to block the bid, going against the wishes of 74 per cent of shareholders who voted in favour of the offer.

The golden shares give the state veto rights over strategically important company decisions.

The state believes the bid was not in the interest of Portugal, as it is considered important to maintain the size of the company, which is the country’s largest, by market value.

It is expected that the European Commission and Telefonica will raise a legal challenge to the government’s intervention.

View original here:

Telefonica of Spain is reported to have sold an 8 per cent stake in Portugal Telecom, leaving it with a 2% interest in the company.

The deal was reported by Portuguese business daily Jornal de Negocios on Wednesday.

Telefonica is bidding for Portugal Telecom’s stake in Vivo Participacoes SA, Brazil’s biggest wireless operator, leading to claims that it sold its stake in Portugal Telecom to allies who would vote in favour of the Vivo deal.

Vivo is jointly owned by Telefonica and Portugal Telecom, but Telefonica is seeking to take control of the company in order to merge it with Telecomunicacoes de Sao Paulo SA, its fixed-line unit in Brazil.

Telefonica said that the sale of its shares in Portugal Telecom was carried out via brokers and it did not know the identities of the buyers.

The company denies that it made a deal with the buyers to support its bid for Vivo.

Here is the original:
Telefonica sells stake in Portugal Telecom

Polariq Ltd, a UK-based optical fiber company, has been acquired by US-based Xtera Communications, Inc.

Polariq specialises in solutions for polarisation mode dispersion (PMD), which causes random spreading of optical pulses in optical fiber and limits the rate at which data can be transmitted over a fiber.

“PMD and polarization phenomena have been lifelong issues for the optical communications industry,” said Stuart Barnes, founder and chief operating officer of Polariq.

“By applying its technology to polarization multiplexing (PM), Polariq’s unique patented solution enables more channels per fiber, effectively increasing the overall capacity.”

The acquisition will allow Xtera to maximise the capacity of its fiber cable systems.

View post:
Polariq aquired by Xtera Communications

Lancashire based Daisy Group has acquired Newcastle upon Tyne based Fone Logistics for £3.6 million, continuing its rapid growth.

The takeover is in line with Daisy’s strategy to consolidate the fragmented communications market.

The group has now spent more than £250 million on acquisitions in the past year, including Eurotel and Redstone Telecom.

The addition of Fone to the group will enhance Daisy’s product offering to UK SMEs, giving it access to 600 mobile phone dealers who supply this market.

In the six months to April, Fone reported revenues of £19.6m and underlying pre-tax profits of £500,000.

Daisy recently announced that it plans to double the size of its Manchester operations with a £2m investment.

It currently employs 40 people in Manchester and more than 1,000 nationwide.

Credit:
Daisy Group acquires Fone Logistics

The phone and broadband provider BT have some long term green plans with a goal of reducing its greenhouse gases by 80 per cent for 2020!

However, the company have announced that it has already managed to cut the amount of greenhouse gasses that it creates by 54 per cent since the plan was hatched in 1997.

According to the BT 2010 Sustainability Report, the company also have a goal to cut its Co2 emissions by 80 per cent before 2016, the baseline for this will also be the figures that relate to 1997, so far the company have managed to cut emission down by 59 per cent.

For a company of its size, the main source of emissions comes from data centres, transport and buildings, but nearly all of its power comes from renewable sources.

More here:
BT with green plans