Background of global ownership of Orange: Before May 2000 In May 2000, the Orange brand, through a complex set of mergers and divisions, was acquired and eventually retained by
Orange S.A., then a fully owned
subsidiary of
France Télécom. The chain of mergers that led to the May 2000 acquisition is as follows. The inception of the Orange brand was in 1990 in the
United Kingdom with the formation of "Microtel Communications Ltd" - a consortium initially formed by
Pactel Corporation (American),
British Aerospace (BAe, now
BAE Systems),
Millicom, and
Matra (French); and later, to be wholly owned by BAe. In July 1991, the Hong Kong-based conglomerate -
Hutchison Whampoa through a
stock swap deal with BAe, acquired a controlling stake of 65% in Microtel, who by then had won a license to develop a
Personal communications network (PCN) network in United Kingdom. Subsequently, Hutchison renamed Microtel to Orange Personal Communications Services Ltd, and on 28 April 1994, Orange brand was launched in the UK mobile phone market . A
holding company structure was adopted in 1995 with the establishment of Orange plc. In April 1996, Orange went public and floated on the
London Stock Exchange and
NASDAQ, majority owned by Hutchison (48.22%), followed by
BAe (21.1%). In June 1996, it became the youngest company to enter the
FTSE 100, valued at £2.4 billion. And by July 1997 Orange had gained one million customers. The stint as a public company came to an end in October 1999, when it was acquired for US$33 Billion by the German conglomerate -
Mannesmann AG. The Mannesmann's acquisition of Orange triggered
Vodafone to make a
hostile takeover bid for the German company. Shortly thereafter, in February 2000, Vodafone acquired Mannesmann for US$183 Billion and, decides to divest Orange as the
EU regulations wouldn't allow it to hold two mobile licences.
France Télécom in May 2000, announced the acquisition of the global operations of Orange from Vodafone for US$37 Billion and the transaction was completed in August 2000.
Evolution of business services arm of France Telecom: 2000–2006 With the strategic ambition to become an
integrated player in managed data networks and IP-based communication and hosting for multinational and local
enterprises, France Telecom in January 2000 bought out its two partner's stake (
Sprint Nextel and
Deutsche Telekom) in the joint venture founded in January 1996- Global One for US$3.88 Billion. In November 2000, France Telecom acquired a controlling stake of 53% in Dutch-based network operator Equant, part of the
SITA group of companies which provided network services to the air transport industry. France Telecom started the process of integrating Global One unit with Equant in 2001 and acquired all outstanding Equant stock by 2005.
Launch of Orange Business Services: 2006–present On 1 June 2006, France Telecom announced the consolidation of the group's business services operations and rebranded the businesses of Equant and
Wanadoo to a new single entity - 'Orange Business Services'. The rebranding exercise created France Telecom SA's global brand for mobile telephony, as well as all broadband and business connectivity services - Orange. ==Organisation and operations==