There were 62 bids in all, totaling $5.1 billion, from which $600 million was accepted.

A week later, the county had closing bids totaling $8,555.

The auction took nearly five months and generated bids totaling some $10.2 billion.

The winning bids totaled $824 million, up 58 percent, from $520 million, last year.

Gehe's bid totals L584.3 million, but the company said it was considering increasing its offer.

Eight companies identified themselves as successful bidders, but other bids totaling $1.1 billion have still not been announced.

So far this year, there have been 12 hostile or unsolicited bids, totaling $25 billion.

If the "alone" bid is successful the point totals for the hand are doubled for both sides.

Today the bid totals in Germany reached 47.7 billion euros, or about $43.4 billion.

The high bids today totaled $379 million, and even licenses for the largest metropolitan areas drew very modest opening offers.