 The particular success of the corporate activities in the area of telecommunications that started in 1990 was the predominant reason for the takeover of Mannesmann by the British telecommunications company Vodafone in 2000 – still one of the largest-ever company takeovers worldwide.Back then, the Mannesmann Group had 130,860 employees worldwide and revenues of €23.27 billion.The name Mannesmann ceased to exist in the engineering, automotive and telecommunications sectors soon after Vodafone purchased the company.