BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Deutsche Telekom is still confident of winning the approval of U.S. regulators for U.S. unit T-Mobile's $26 billion deal to take over Sprint, CEO Tim Hoettges said on Thursday.
"I think this deal is good for America and that we, at the end of the day, will win approval for the transaction," Hoettges told the German company's annual general meeting.
Updating shareholders, Hoettges said the clock on a 180-day review of the deal was currently stopped with 58 days to go. The clock would be started again on April 4.
In other comments, Hoettges said he was confident that a turnaround at Deutsche Telekom's troubled IT services arm T-Systems was on track.
Deutsche Telekom had no plans, meanwhile, to remove a minority stake in Britain's BT from its pension fund, CFO Christian Illek told shareholders. Deutsche Telekom has said in the past that the 12 percent stake in BT is a passive holding.
(Reporting by Nadine Schimroszik; Writing by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Thomas Seythal)
