National Power announced plans last week to demerge its international business and concentrate on its 2.5 million retail customers and its 8 per cent share of the generation market in the UK. Speculation immediately grew that EdF, which already owns the London Electricity and Sweb supply and distribution companies, might be tempted to bid.
However, any such plans appear to have been stymied by the French parliament’s block last week on plans to open up the country’s domestic electricity market to international competition. However, the case was thrown out of the High Court.TRILLION-DOLLAR BANKERS, PAGE 4. ELECTRICITE de France (EdF), the state-owned French power giant, has ruled itself out of the bidding for National Power because of the intensifying row over the liberalisation of the French electricity market. That figure, which is just for advice with further fees pay-able for underwriting the pounds 77bn bid, is justified by the enormous complexity of the deal and the importance of success to Vodafone.
Goldman Sachs’ position in Vodafone’s team came under threat last week. Mannesmann protested that because the bank had a long-standing relationship with the German company, it might share confidential information with Vodafone.

Goldman Sachs and Warburg Dillon Reed, the investment banks advising Vodafone, are in line for an pounds 81m win-only fee if the phone firm’s hostile bid for Mannesmann succeeds in the face of strong opposition at the target’s German HQ. He will argue that the bid does not adequately reflect the value of Mannesmann, whose shares have rocketed in the last few years thanks to the boom in European telecoms.Mannesmann has denied that it is seeking a “white knight” .. It will be a challenge for Vodafone to get a majority of shareholders to support this bid.” A Mannesmann spokesman said: “We are confident that our defence strategy will be successful.”Mannesmann chairman Klaus Esser has spent the weekend with his advisers to finalise the German group’s defence strategy. Both Hypovereinsbank of Munich and Frankfurt’s Commerzbank have recommended investors decide for themselves. Mannesmann shares fell 7 per cent to 193.1 euros on Friday, indicating growing domestic scepticism over Vodafone’s chances.Matthias Trimm, a fund manager at DWS Investment in Frankfurt, said: “The offer isn’t high enough.

Mr Gent is hopeful of winning the support of the 30 per cent of the company controlled by investors who also own shares in Vodafone.However, a significant minority of Mannesmann shares are in bearer form, making it very difficult for Vodafone to track down and lobby their owners. Vodafone is planning to press its case with an advertising campaign in the German press, although the notices are expected to be low-key at first.German institutional invest-ors have reacted cautiously to Vodafone’ approach so far. Demonstrations against the bid took place in Mannesmann’s home town of Dusseldorf on Friday, where 800 workers protested against Vodafone’s move. Mannesmann has denied that it is behind the demonstrations, maintaining that its fate should be decided by shareholders.Calls for the Prime Minister’s intervention came as Vodafone stepped up its campaign to convince Mannesmann shareholders to accept its pounds 77bn bid even though the company’s board has rejected the deal.Mr Gent is arguing that Vodafone and Mannesmann represent an ideal strategic fit and would create a company with formidable strength in the mobile phone markets of the UK, Germany, France and Italy. No German company has ever been taken over as a result of a hostile foreign bid.Although Vodafone has insisted that no jobs will be lost should its bid succeed, Mr Schroder remains acutely aware of the fears of German unions. At a breakfast meeting last week, Mr Blair gave Mr Gent his full backing for the bid.But that has put Britain on a collision course with Germany, which remains reluctant to countenance foreign ownership of domestic companies even though two of Britain’s mobile phone companies – Orange and One2One – have succumbed to German bids this year.

They harm the target but also the predator itself in the medium term. I much prefer French-German co-operation because it is amicable.”The comments have angered both political and business leaders as they reinforce the idea that Europe is anti-British.Chris Gent, chief executive of Vodafone, has been keeping the Prime Minister informed of the progress of the bid. The Prime Minister made the request at a dinner in Florence The previous day, Mr Schroder criticised Vodafone’s pounds 77bn bid, echoing the stern resistance from Mannesmann and union leaders to the record-breaking hostile bid .
Mr Schroder said on Friday: “Hostile takeovers destroy a company’s culture. TONY BLAIR last night asked the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, to tone down his anti-Vodafone rhetoric in an attempt to defuse the growing political row over the UK company’s bid for Mannesmann. All this, however, is little consolation to Mr el-Batouty’s family as they struggle to save the dead pilot’s reputation..

In this case there are too many possible causes – from a bomb to the suggestion that another pilot had been allowed a turn at the controls (there were 33 Egyptian military men on the flight, including a number of F-15 pilots) – to make the swift indictment against one pilot stick.The NTSB is still not sufficiently convinced that the crash was a deliberate act to hand the case to the FBI. It mishandled evidence, withheld information and interfered with the probe. Within six weeks the investigators decided that a mechanical failure was the most likely cause, but the FBI blocked the release of the report, and it was over a year before that conclusion was reached publicly.The recriminations over the latest disaster have also revived memories of the fiasco of the early stages of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, when Islamic militants were immediately, and wrongly, blamed. The New York office of the FBI was so convinced there was a bomb or missile that it elbowed the safety experts aside. “At least twice before, veteran pilots have cut off fuel to both engines while reaching for a nearby switch,” said the Seattle Times.The investigation of TWA Flight 800, which crashed off the US coast in 1996, revealed a bitter struggle between the NTSB and the FBI for control.