Telefonica de Espana SA and Unisource NV, the consortium the Spanish carrier was part of before defecting to the Concert alliance (CI No 3,144), have decided on a friendly settlement whereby Telefonica will return its 25% stake as well as paying compensation to its former partners, Telia AB, Koninklijke PTT Nederland NV and Swiss Telecom. The agreement should be concluded before June 9 in order to allow companies to make their bids for Spain’s second-line operator Retevision. And according to Spanish reports, Unisource would net a $126m compensation. Once the deal is finalized, Telefonica and British Telecommunications Plc, one of its partners in the Concert alliance, the other being MCI Communications Corp, can forge ahead with their exchange of equity agreed last month. The Spanish company will take 1% of British Telecom while the latter will purchase 2% of Telefonica. British Telecom is also set to drop its 15.8% share in Airtel, which is a domestic cellular network that competes directly with Telefonica.
