France Telecom to buy out Equant in 564 million euro deal

French telecom giant France Telecom http://www.francetelecom.com has announced that it will buy the remaining 45.8 per cent stake in its business services subsidiary Equant. As the Financial Times http://www.ft.com reports, the company has said it will provide its loss-making subsidiary with a new "financially sound base". Furthermore, it has said it will bail out Equant to the tune of 250 million dollars (191.12 million euros) in a credit facility owing to an "anticipated further deterioration in Equant's results in 2005 and later years."