Altice and Numericable-SFR have finalised their acquisition of Vivendi’s 20% stake in Numericable-SFR for €40 per share.
Altice now owns 70.4% of Numericable-SFR, or 78% excluding the treasury shares Numericable-SFR holds in itself.
Vivendi sold…
Altice and Numericable-SFR have finalised their acquisition of Vivendi’s 20% stake in Numericable-SFR for €40 per share.
Altice now owns 70.4% of Numericable-SFR, or 78% excluding the treasury shares Numericable-SFR holds in itself.
Vivendi sold SFR to Altice and Numericable last year and took a minority stake in the combined Numericable-SFR as part of the deal.
Altice and Numericable-SFR’s offer for Vivendi’s shares was made in February and took the market by surprise as it came at an 18.9% discount to Numericable-SFR’s most recent closing price, and because there were call options in place for Vivendi to be bought out further down the line.
Vivendi’s board elected to approve the offer at the end of February, hastening the conglomerate’s exit from telecoms (apart from its 8.3% voting share in Telecom Italia). On accepting the bid, it noted that despite the discount, it was a 20% premium over the closing price of the shares on 27 November, the date the original SFR sale closed.
Vivendi added that holding on to such a small stake would have made “a future exit under optimal conditions uncertain”.
Today Vivendi received a first cash payment of €1.8bn, net of a €116m price adjustment related to the SFR level of debt at end November 2014, from Numericable-SFR.
A second payment of €1.9bn from Altice, which bears interest at 3.8% per year and has been guaranteed by JP Morgan and BNP Paribas, will be received no later than 7 April 2016, Vivendi said.
