Telecoms holding Altice has secured commitment from a syndicate of nine banks to finance its planned acquisition of mobile operator SFR.
Last week, Vivendi picked Altice for exclusive negotiations about a potential merger between their respective units,…
Telecoms holding Altice has secured commitment from a syndicate of nine banks to finance its planned acquisition of mobile operator SFR.
Last week, Vivendi picked Altice for exclusive negotiations about a potential merger between their respective units, mobile operator SFR and cableco Numericable.
The exclusive talks will end in early April.
Altice offered €11.75bn to Vivendi and a 32% share in the equity of the combined listed Numericable-SFR entity.
Mobile operator Bouygues Telecom also bid for SFR, offering Vivendi €11.3bn and a 43% stake in a merged Bouygues Tel-SFR entity.
To fund the proposed purchase, Altice said about €8.35bn would be raised at the operating companies’ level. The remaining €3.4bn would come from a capital increase to which Altice would subscribe at 75%.
The names of the banks have not been disclosed but reports earlier indicated that the lenders are Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley.
In a statement today, Altice said it would retain control of the new company, which would be listed on the Paris stock exchange.
