MILAN (Standard&Poor's) July 8, 2004--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that its ratings and outlook on France's dominant telecommunications service provider, France Telecom S.A. (FT; BBB+/Positive/A-2), remain unchanged following the results of the IPO of the group's yellow-pages business, which were in line with its expectations. The IPO will generate some €1.3 billion in cash for FT--prior to a possible green-shoe allocation of about €100 million--thereby mitigating the cash impact of the €2.4 billion acquisition of Wanadoo's minority interests. In addition, today's announcement of FT's agreement to sell its Danish mobile subsidiary to TeliaSonera AB for about €600 million further compensates for the impact of the Wanadoo transaction, while also removing an area of weak business positioning
