A TAKEOVER deal for one of the region's biggest employers could be delayed until the end of the year, bosses have revealed.

EE, the UK's biggest mobile phone operator, is due to be bought by BT as soon as the £12.5bn deal receives regulatory approval.

BT will buy all of Orange and Deutsche Telekom's EE shares.

But BT may have to wait several months before it can complete the move, is emerged this morning.

EE chief executive, Olaf Sawntee said that the companies hoped to have the deal passed by the competition authorities by "the end of the year".

EE is Darlington’s largest private employer with about 2,000 call centre workers, and the company has hundreds more staff in Doxford, Sunderland, and Cobalt Business Park, near Newcastle.

Its absorption into BT will make the latter one of the top ten largest firms in the region, giving it an 8,800-strong workforce.

In February, BT said it was too early to confirm if there would be any impact on jobs; prompting Darlington MP Jenny Chapman to warn any job cuts would be a catastrophe for the town.

In a trading update today EE said its operating revenue fell 1.1 per cent to £1.469m in the first quarter.

EE has 31 million customers, of whom 24.5 million are direct mobile customers. The firm has focused on expanding its 4G coverage across Europe and is now the continent's largest 4G operator.

The company added 1.7 million 4G customers in the first three months of the year and in a statement this morning said it was "firmly on track to reach our target of 14 million 4G customers by year-end."

EE boss Olaf Swantee, added: "Customers will be able to get better deals because when they can buy four products, instead of one or two, from the same company they will get significantly better deals."

He added that EE had employed 1,000 more call centre staff in the UK in the first quarter of the year, in an effort to improve customer service.

It is unclear whether EE will be rebranded after the takeover. Both brands "have a lot of power in the UK market today", said Mr Swantee.