5 years ago… Vodafone Airtouch poised to make Mannesmann bid

09.11.1999: Vodafone AirTouch is on the verge of making a hostile takeover bid for Mannesmann, the German engineering group turned predatory telecoms player, according to UK press reports over the weekend.

However, Newbury-based Vodafone is rumoured to have an unlikely partner in France Telecom, which would buy Orange should a deal be completed. Mannesmann beat several rivals to win Orange last month, but if Vodafone buys Mannesmann it will have to give up its UK rival on antitrust grounds.

Alan Pyne, a director at telecoms consultancy Schema, said: "This makes some sense. Vodafone would be forced to sell Orange, and the most likely bidder would appear to be someone like France Telecom because of their intentions to bid for a UMTS licence."

09.11.2004: Less than six months later Vodafone sealed its position as one of the tech powerhouses when Mannesmann caved in to its $176bn bid after some last-minute negotiations by then-CEO Chris Gent.

The acquisition spending spree also saw Gent's pay packet rise by a whopping 407 per cent from £1.35m to £6.88m in 2001, prompting "fat cat" allegations and a review of the company's controversial pay policy for execs.

Gent was then dogged by a German fraud investigation alleging "financial irregularities" in bonuses supposedly paid to Mannesmann executives to smooth over the deal.

The "Mannesmann Six" trial eventually cleared both parties earlier this year, by which time Gent had long-since stepped down from the top spot at Vodafone and been replaced by Arun Sarin.

But the aftershocks of Vodafone's spending spree, which included £6bn on a 3G licence for the UK, are still being felt. New figures show the operator will have spent over £22bn on 3G before the handsets even hit the shops ahead of its expected launch this week.