O2 (UK) cent share of Cellnet for £3.15 billion. Cellnet had five million customers at the time of its acquisition. The company was later rebranded as BT Cellnet , and it became a part of BT Wireless, a group of companies owned by BT. BT announced on 3 September 2001 that the BT Wireless business would be spun off from the main group as a newly listed holding company, mmO2 plc, operating under the "O2" brand. Shareholders approved the plan at an extraordinary general meeting on 23 October 2001. BT Cellnet relaunched as "O2" on 18 June 2002, along with other former
O2 (UK) UK. The deal was subject to regulatory approval. The European Commission decided in December 2015 not to refer Hutchison's takeover of Telefónica's O2 business in the UK to the country's Competition and Markets Authority, which had asked to be allowed to investigate the planned acquisition, arguing that as the British competition regulator, it – and not the Commission – should have the right to rule on the 'transaction', which it argued 'threatens to affect significantly competition in the UK retail mobile and wholesale mobile markets', claiming that its investigation of the takeover would 'avoid duplication and fragmentation'. On 11 May