(Editor's note: This article has been republished as the currency of the credit facility was misstated in the last sentence of the last paragraph. A corrected version of the article follows.) MILAN (Standard&Poor's) Jan. 24, 2005--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that its ratings and outlook on France's dominant telecommunications services provider France Telecom S.A. (FT; BBB+/Positive/A-2) remain unchanged following today's announcement by the group of its proposal to acquire full ownership of Netherlands-based Equant through the acquisition of substantially all of the assets and liabilities of Equant for a cash consideration of €564 million ($738 million). FT currently owns 54.2% of Equant, its nondomestic wireline subsidiary that provides end-to-end data communications solutions to large business customers.
