France's Orange to sell entire 2.5% stake in Britain's BT

(Reuters) - BT Group said on Thursday that Orange, France's number one telecoms operator, would offer up its entire 2.5% stake in the Britain's former telecoms monopoly.

BT intends to repurchase up to 80 million pounds of shares after Orange said it would offer about 248 million shares in BT to institutional investors by means of an accelerated bookbuild offering, the companies said.

At closing prices, the 2.5% stake is worth 493 million pounds, or around 550 million euros, according to a Reuters calculation.

(Reporting by Justin George Varghese and Sarah White; editing by David Evans)