AT&T Denies Vodafone Bid Plan

Randall Stephenson, the new head honcho at US telco AT&T has moved quickly to quell rumours that he may be about to oversee a bid for Vodafone. Speaking to the Financial Times, the former CTO now CEO, dismissed suggestions that AT&T was "mulling" a bid for the UK-based global mobile giant. Instead he said the US company would concentrate on smaller acquisitions.

Stephenson outlined his strategy to the London business daily claiming that it is "unlikely" that AT&T will attempt to buy up former national monopoly operators in Europe. That course of action was something he described as "probably" not making sense.

However, he agreed that AT&T is on the look-out for smaller companies which should allow it to compete better for large telecoms contracts with multinational companies. This, sector in particular was highlighted by Stephenson as a "huge opportunity for AT&T." Stephenson replaced Edward Whitacre as chief executive of AT&T on June 3.