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This case considers the events surrounding the £115 billion take-over of Mannesmann AG of Germany by UK based mobile phone giant Vodafone Airtouch plc in February 2000. This was the biggest ever hostile acquisition and the first successful hostile cross-border bid for a German company. Mannesmann, one of Germany''s oldest and most prestigious companies, had diversified from its engineering origins to encompass telecommunications. Vodafone, started in the 1980s had grown rapidly to become the world''s biggest mobile phone company. The take-over bid seemed to threaten the very nature of German capitalism, signalling that in the new high tech globalising economy no country could prosper in isolation. After the deal, Vodafone was the dominant player in the world mobile telephone industry. It seemed well placed for success, if, as expected, the future of telecommunications were to be mobile. However the cost of the new third-generation technology would be huge.