News In Brief

In the second major telecommunications industry deal in less than a week, German conglomerate Mannesmann AG announced it's buying Britain's third-largest mobile-phone company, Orange Plc., for $33 billion in cash and stock. Orange has 3.5 million subscribers. Analysts said the deal was the Duesseldorf-based company's last opportunity to gain a foothold in the booming British market. Rival Deutsche Telekom bought One2One in August, and Vodafone Airtouch is both Britain's and the world's largest telecommunications company, with 31 million subscribers. On Tuesday, the state-owned telecom companies of Norway and Sweden announced a $47 billion merger.

In a $1.2 billion all-stock deal that will join the US's two largest business- and medical-records storage companies, Iron Mountain Inc. plans to acquire Pierce Leahy Corp., the latter announced. Boston-based Iron Mountain services 50,000 accounts. Pierce Leahy of King of Prussia, Pa., has a customer base of 45,000 in North America and the United Kingdom.

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