DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: France Telecom is expected to announce tomorrow plans to buy Orange, the British wireless company. Janet Guyon of "Fortune Magazine" rejoins me from London. And, Janet, why is Vodafone selling Orange?</s>JANET GUYON, LONDON BUREAU CHIEF, "FORTUNE": Well, actually, Vodafone has to sell Orange. As part of its deal to buy Mannesmann last year, it acquired Orange. And Vodafone already has substantial mobile phone operations in Britain, so this just gave it too big of a market share. So both the antitrust authorities in Britain and in the E.U. have required Vodafone to sell Orange. And it looks like, according to people close to the talks, that France Telecom is the most likely buyer. About $37 billion, France Telecom would pay, plus assume some debt. And Orange had bid on a third-generation mobile phone license in Britain. So the total value of this deal, assuming this is announced tomorrow, as we expect, would be about $47 billion.</s>MARCHINI: Now, how deep is France Telecom into wireless so far, and what would this give it?</s>GUYON: Well, France Telecom has some interests, mainly in France, and so it would give it a big chunk of Britain, obviously, and also it would get some operations in Belgium and the Netherlands and Italy and Germany. So it would make France Telecom Europe's number- two mobile operator, after Vodafone. So it's really a big step for France Telecom. They have, apparently, assuming this deal does happen, beat out both KPN of the Netherlands and Sonera of Finland, who had also been interested in buying Orange from Vodafone.</s>MARCHINI: All right, thanks a lot, Janet Guyon, of "Fortune" magazine, reporting live for us from London.</s>GUYON: Thank you.
'Fortune': France Telecom Expected to buy Britain's Orange for $37B