Crunch time in Sommer's battle to keep top job at DT

Ron Sommer, the chief executive of the German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom, will tomorrow battle to save his job at a key board meeting as pressure mounts for him to quit.

It is thought the German government, which owns a 43 per cent stake in Deutsche Telekom, will put forward a successor to Mr Sommer at the company's supervisory board meeting.

The rumoured replacement is Gerd Tenzer, a current Deutsche Telekom management board member who runs the company's technology division.

But ousting Mr Sommer will require a two-thirds majority vote of the supervisory board, which is equally made up of both shareholder and employee representatives and which remains divided on the issue.

Despite the German government's efforts to unseat him, employee representatives on the company's board have publicly backed Mr Sommer.

And Goldman Sachs, the investment bank which advises Deutsche Telekom, became the latest to come out in support of Mr Sommer over the weekend.

Henry Paulson, Goldman's chief executive, has written to the company's supervisory board and warned it not to change the management team.

"As you are no doubt aware, the company has developed a strategic and financial plan that addresses the immediate concern relating to the company's balance sheet and VoiceStream [the US mobile phone business]," Mr Paulson wrote. "The essential element of the successful execution of this plan is the continuity of Deutsche Telekom's management."

The company's supervisory board has scheduled the special meeting to discuss the problems it is facing, including how to tackle its €67bn (£43bn) debt pile.

The future of VoiceStream will undoubtedly feature after speculation the German company could be ready to sell some or all of the unit. Rumours abounded last week that VoiceStream could be merged with the rival cellular operator AT&T Wireless.

Analysts said they thought a solid performance from that business, unveiled in a first-half update last week, put Mr Sommer in a better position.

Deutsche Telekom said its mobile phone operations in the US were "particularly strong" with VoiceStream's customer numbers up by 525,000 in the second quarter boosting the total to more than 8 million.

"Strong US mobile numbers and no apparent progress in search for Sommer successor could be seen to diminish the probability that he will depart," analysts at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein said.

Last week, the company said more than 18,000 of its staff had signed a petition supporting Mr Sommer, urging political leaders not to make the company's future an issue in the September election.