The country's smallest mobile phone operator is worried that its rivals will outbid it at auction, buying up larger slices of the available bandwidth and squeezing Three out of the market altogether.
It outbid rival Dell for 3Par, a data storage business, on Monday, sending its own shares tumbling.
If it does so, Citigroup is likely to sell it to Warner Music, an American rival which was outbid by Hands for EMI three years ago.
That history may motivate the Yankees to overwhelm Rodriguez, but despite the presence of wealthy West Coast teams that need offense — the Angels and the Giants, especially — they do not see a rival that could outbid them.
In recent weeks, Havas, the French rival that WPP outbid for Tempus, and Cordiant Communications of Britain have both warned that profits for the year might fall short of expectations.
The Swedish government said Pernod had outbid rival candidates but the company said a key factor had also been its pledge to keep V&S's headquarters in Sweden.
Larger rival Facebook reportedly outbid it by hundreds of millions of dollars for rapidly growing Instagram, but Twitter managed to grab the yet-to-launch Vine app for a few million dollars in stock and cash.
Interbrew was able to outbid rivals because it expected to wring the greatest cost savings from the deal.
Sky's critics, however, have long accused Mr. Murdoch of securing unfair advantages by using his deep pockets to outbid rivals.
Ford, the world's second-largest automaker, outbid rivals including the top-ranked General Motors Corporation for the right to negotiate a purchase of Daewoo from its creditors.
