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PARIS, April 4 (Reuters) - France Telecom haschosen Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch toadvise it on a potential initial public offering of EE,Britain's largest mobile operator, according to a personfamiliar with the matter.
Deutsche Telekom is expected to hire JP Morganfor the sale, multiple sources from the sector said, since thebank advised it in 2009 when the 50-50 joint venture with FranceTelecom was formed.
Both telecom groups declined comment on the future of EE onThursday. Last year they said they were conducting a "strategicreview on the asset to consider different options, with an IPOas the preferred option".
Private equity groups, including U.S.-based KKR and Europe'sCVC Capital Partners, have also been sounding out banks to raisemoney to mount a potential 9 billion to 10 billion pound ($14billion to $15 billion) buyout of EE.
Such a bid would be ambitious for private equity given itslarge size, but interest from funds or from industry buyerscould emerge in the coming months and affect the IPO plan,sector bankers have said.
The banks advising the joint venture's owners are expectedto run a "twin track" process to evalute options for a sale or listing of EE, according to one of the sources.
EE, formerly known as Everything Everywhere, has more than27 million customers and competes with Telefonica's 02 brand, Vodafone, and Hutchison's 3 brand.
In October, it became the first operator in Britain tolaunch super-fast mobile data services, known as 4G. It added201,000 net contract subscribers in the fourth quarter, aslowdown from 250,000 in the third quarter.
The group posted full-year adjusted core earnings of 1.41billion pounds, broadly flat on the year before.
