'Financial Times': Europe 'Determined' New IMF Head Will Be European
DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: Today's "Financial Times" reports that, in the battle over who's going to head the International Monetary Fund, Germany is about to fold them. However, Germany denies that.</s>DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN ANCHOR: Ed Crooks of the "Financial Times" joins us this morning from the "FT"'s London newsroom. Good morning, Ed. Is the Washington's sort of dissatisfaction with this candidate enough to cause it to throw it out the window, really?</s>ED CROOKS, ECONOMIC EDITOR, "FINANCIAL TIMES": Well, we think it is. We were talking about this yesterday, and all of a sudden Caio Koch-Weser, the Germany candidate, was the favorite in a field of one. It does seem now that that favorite may well be withdrawn. As you were saying in your introduction, the Germans are denying this; they're saying that he hasn't pulled out of the race yet. But I think the key thing today is going to be this straw poll of the IMF board, which is going to happened today, later today in Washington, and I think it's probably going to be pretty clear then that Mr. Koch-Weser just doesn't have enough support to get the job. There is, as you say, really, particularly very strong opposition to him still from the United States government, and I think that is going to mean that he will be rejected, in which case the whole thing is wide open. Then there's a sudden big panic and European governments are going to be desperately running around trying to find another candidate because, of course, this has always been a European job. At the moment, Koch-Weser is the only European candidate. European governments are determined that this will continue to be a European job, so they're going to try very, very hard indeed to find another high-caliber European very quickly who they can put forward.</s>MARCHINI: Meantime, we're looking at more consolidation potentially in telecommunications; not only cross-border, but coming into the United States. You guys are reporting Deutsche Telekom's got a bid for Qwest.</s>CROOKS: Indeed, that's right. Well, they've been in takeover talks, is our story today, and very interesting. They're seeing Deutsche Telekom really spreading its wings, looking at making a very, very serious, big acquisition in the United States. This is -- Qwest, I think, valued at something like $44 billion; also, of course, now in these talks to buy US West, with the combined group worth something like $84 billion. So very, very big deal, potentially, for Deutsche Telekom there. Not definitely certain that it will go through. Major shareholder Philip Anjerts (ph) of Denver owns I think something like 36 percent of Qwest. His attitude's going to be crucial, but it's said that he may be interested, has been in talks, may be prepared to sell his stake. Obviously, if he does then it does look like the deal will go through. And so, really, as you we're saying, talking about the consolidation of telecoms, just really very interesting what's happening in Europe. But Deutsche Telekom still, actually, more than 50 percent owned by the German government, but the whole kind of process of privatization, deregulation opening up the markets that's going on in Europe is leading to widespread, global consolidation.</s>HAFFENREFFER: Pretty hot sector right now. Thank you, Ed Crooks from the "Financial Times."