It seems that AT&T can’t catch a break these days when it comes to bidding on other companies. According to our report from earlier, it seemed that AT&T was willing to bid for UK carrier, Vodafone, and was willing to pay as much as $80 billion for the company. Unfortunately it seems that was not the case as AT&T has since released a statement announcing that they do not have any intentions of making a bid on Vodafone. Apparently this in accordance to the UK’s laws, in particular the UK Takeover Code in which it requires companies, such as AT&T, to release a written statement in which they basically announce their intentions. This is versus other countries where acquisitions are usually announced once the deal has concluded, as opposed to at the beginning before anything transpires.
According to the statement, “At the request of the UK Takeover Panel, AT&T confirms that it does not intend to make an offer for Vodafone. Accordingly, AT&T is bound by the restrictions under Rule 2.8 of the UK Takeover Code (the “Code”).” However AT&T also noted that it is possible, under the rule, that they reserve the right to announce and make a possible offer within 6 months of this announcement, although we’re not sure if this is merely clarification on AT&T’s part of if they might be suggesting that them making a bid would not be out of the question. In any case any UK readers out there happy/disappointed that AT&T will not be attempting to bid on Vodafone?