AT&T Corp, France Telecom and Deutsche Telecom AG are believed to be among the 30 or more companies that have registered an interest in buying British Rail Telecommunications Ltd, the UK railway telephone network. The company, which has been being shopped around by Swiss Bank Corp since May, has reportedly generated a higher-than-expected level of interest and expectations are now that the sale could raise as much as ú500m for the UK Treasury. Some analysts reckon the national network – a 12,500-mile ready-made data and telephone system running alongside the railway tracks – could be attractive to a consortium of cable television companies, data network operators serving multinational customers, or a public service provider with national ambitions. The interest from the French and German state networks is thought to be through the proposed Phoenix consortium with Sprint Corp, which is not allowed to exist yet. Meantime, AT&T, which already has a full operator’s licence in the UK, has stated its intention to enter the UK market, but it is not clear that it wants to own its own infrastructure unless it involves only limited investment to put it into service. National Transcommunications Ltd, the former Independent Broadcasting Authority transmitter and engineering division now owned by Mercury Asset Management, is also thought to have requested confidential information about the concern. One potential sticking point is that telecommunications operators might want to split the network from railway company’s vast maintenance business, which employs more than 2,300 workers and may be better suited to a rail engineering company. However, thus far British Rail has asked for bids for the entire business. Indicative bids are being sought by July 25 and a shortlist of up to six bidders will be produced later in the year.
