ABSTRACT
Background Prior to the takeover of AirTouch of the USA, Vodafone, somewhat unusually, was a fully listed UK-based company - that is, its shares had been floated on the stock market - and, interestingly, no other telecoms operator had acquired a significant stake. It had started out as a subsidiary of Racal in 1984, with an analogue licence dating from 1982, at which time it was the only private sector competitor to the then publicly-owned incumbent, British Telecom munications (BT).
