Vodafone, which has been on an aggressive acquisition binge this year, said it would increase its stake in the company, Japan Telecom, to 15percentt but, more importantly, increase its stake in Japan Telecom's wireless unit to 34percentt.
Fiat also negotiated a series of arrangements that allowed it to increase its stake by making improvements to Chrysler.
The Atlanta-based telephone company BellSouth said it would increase its stake in the Colombian wireless operator Celumovil S.A. to establish a national cellular footprint in that country.
Affiliated said yesterday that it planned to increase its stake in Friess another 19percentt in three years.
Porsche announced on Oct. 26 that it planned to increase its stake in Volkswagen to 75percentt.
Recently, Russia's national long-distance telephone company reported that it wanted to increase its stake in fast-growing Golden Telecom.
Last week, Bank of America announced that it would spend $7 billion to increase its stake in China Construction Bank.
In January it asked for permission to increase its stake to 20% (any holding above 10% requires government approval).
In late December, the company announced it would pay €270m (£260m) to increase its stake to 91%, the requirement under German law to control the company.
It will have the option to increase its stake to 13% over the next two years.
Orange can gradually increase its stake to 100% by 2013, however, it appears the deal is not formally signed yet.
