Asked if the supervisory board, which had already seen most of the new terms, would accept the deal Gent said, "I tend to think so, (but) it's like regulators, don't second guess them."

Despite three months of acrimonious claim and counter-claim in a bitter takeover battle, Gent was full of praise for Mannesmann chief executive Klaus Esser and his management team.

He also paid tribute to the role of his own advisers and Vodafone team in bringing about the successful conclusion to what had been the world's biggest hostile takeover attempt and joked that he might celebrate his success with a "sarsaparilla" tonic on the flight back to Britain.

Gent said although the supervisory board had failed to agree the offer during a three hour afternoon sitting, there were only a few points of clarification needed.

"I very much hope that when they look at the document that the management board has supported they will be happy with it and we can press on," Gent said by cellphone from the aircraft.

In a remarkable breakthrough in hostilities, during which the two camps traded personal slights, Gent and Esser pledged to join forces to take Europe's most valuable company - a telecoms titan spanning 25 countries - into the Internet age. The two struck a deal which gives Mannesmann's shareholders 49.5 per cent of the combined company - the world's largest cellphone group by far - rather than the initial 47.2 per cent offered by Gent. Esser drew praise from Gent for his dogged defence of Mannesmann shareholders' interests and said he was "really delighted" his counterpart had accepted a role in the combined group and would eventually take the role of deputy chairman.