Most of the Baby Bells seem to have spent the second five years of their independent existence selling all the things that they bought in the first five years, and BellSouth Corp’s BellSouth Enterprises has now decided that buying UK paging company Air Call Plc, Welwyn Garden City, was a mistake, and is to pass the parcel on to Vodafone Group Plc, receiving an undisclosed cash sum on completion, expected by mid-October. The acquisition of Air Call brings together two of the leading paging network operators in the UK, Vodafone chief executive Gerry Whent said. Our intention is that, over a period of time, the Air Call business will be combined with that of Vodapage Ltd, the paging network operator of the Vodafone Group, to create the second largest paging operation in the UK, with over 200,000 subscribers, he added. Vodafone said the price agreed was immaterial in terms of Vodafone and BellSouth turnovers.
