France Telecom has vehemently countered the report published in the Britain's Observer newspaper that said the company had made an offer to buy Deutsche Telekom's struggling mobile company T-Mobile UK, and that the offer had been rejected. A France Telecom spokesman refuted the report saying that no such bid had been made by the company.

The spokesman for France Telecom - the Orange brand owner - said: "We have made no offer for T-Mobile and ... we have not been asked to make an offer."

Earlier this month, France Telecom's finance chief had told Reuters that the company was 'not interested' in buying T-Mobile UK, which, in any case, he added was not formally announced to be open for sale.

Though there have been speculations galore that the German company Deutsche Telekom could likely be thinking of selling its under-performing T-Mobile UK unit - Britain's fourth-biggest mobile operator - there has been official disclosure about any such intentions.

In fact, T-Mobile UK's disastrous results of late have set the rumor-mills abuzz about the prospective sale or a merger of the company. However, the word going round had it that 3 was the front-runner for a likely T-Mobile UK deal!