Determined to win the bidding war against telecoms holding Altice, conglomerate Bouygues has upped its offer for French mobile operator SFR by €800m in cash to €11.3bn.
Last week, Bouygues offered SFR’s parent Vivendi €10.5bn in cash and a 46%…
Determined to win the bidding war against telecoms holding Altice, conglomerate Bouygues has upped its offer for French mobile operator SFR by €800m in cash to €11.3bn.
Last week, Bouygues offered SFR’s parent Vivendi €10.5bn in cash and a 46% stake in the new entity that would be created by the merger of its mobile arm Bouygues Telecom with SFR.
Under this offer, which would have valued SFR at €14.5bn pre-synergies and €19bn post-synergies, Bouygues would have owned a 49% in the combined company. JC Decaux, already a shareholder in Bouygues Tel, would have held the remaining 5%.
The telecoms and industrial conglomerate is now offering Vivendi €11.3bn in cash and 43% in the new entity. Bouygues will own 52%.
As a result, the offer values SFR at €15.5bn pre-synergies and almost €20bn post synergies, Bouygues claims. The group said Vivendi will still have the option to monetise its interest via an IPO following the merger.
The other bidder, Altice, has offered Vivendi €10.9bn in cash and shares in its cableco Numericable “representing 32% of the share capital of a new Numericable-SFR group”.
TelecomFinance understands that Vivendi’s board will review the offers before the end of the week.
Although Bouygues appears to have the upper hand at this stage, a merger between the two mobile operators might face strong regulatory hurdles. A deal between Numericable and SFR is unlikely to face similar resistance as the cableco does not have any mobile offering.
The bidding war is accompanied by a war of words after Numericable CEO Eric Denoyer said in an interview with Le Parisien today that at least 3,000 jobs would be affected by a Bouygues-SFR merger. Previously, Bouygues CEO Martin Bouygues pledged in a letter to the industry ministry that there would not be any job cuts as part of the merger.
Altice said to have raised offer too
A last-minute report indicates that Altice has improved its offer for SFR.
Citing several people close to the situation, Reuters wrote that the holding has raised the cash portion of the bid by €850m to €11.75bn.
Altice declined to comment on market rumours.
