Loss-making T-Systems has long been a headache for the group
According to the German business newspaper, Handelsblatt, Deutsche Telekom (DT) has decided against selling its loss-making arm, T-Systems.
T-Systems offers ICT services to enterprises within and beyond Germany.
The newspaper report says that despite discussions with interested parties, no agreement could be reached. DT is not commenting beyond saying, DT’s management has “options for further growth continuously and entrepreneurially in view” [translated from the German, as no doubt you can tell].
DT, Europe’s largest operator, gave rise to speculation that it might be considering selling off T-Systems amid a raft of wider possibilities towards the end of last year when its group CEO, Tim Höttges, outlined his openness to a number of options, including possible towerco tie-ups with Orange or Vodafone or even Cellnex.
In part, he was looking for help to fund its buy-back of shares in its US subsidiary, T-Mobile – it paid the Softbank Group $2.4 billion for 21.2 million shares in April, taking it closer to its goal of being T-Mobile’s majority shareholder.
DT finally sold off a 51% stake of its tower estate in July, to investor group KKR.
T-Systems has been a thorn in Höttges’s side since he took office in 2014. Offloading the troublesome appendage would’ve been “a liberation” according to Bandelsblatt, which also called it the one problem Höttges had not managed to solve in his eight-year tenure at the top.