Private equity firms Blackstone and KKR are reportedly mulling a bid for France Telecom’s 52.9 per cent stake in mobile operator Mobistar.
The private equity firms are assessing how much they could raise on the debt market, but no decision seems to have…
Private equity firms Blackstone and KKR are reportedly mulling a bid for France Telecom’s 52.9 per cent stake in mobile operator Mobistar.
The private equity firms are assessing how much they could raise on the debt market, but no decision seems to have been taken.
Such a transaction could value Mobistar at more than E3bn.
France Telecom claims it has not received any offer for its stake.
“We’re not aware of any such offer,” a spokesman told TelecomFinance.
The private equity firms did not respond to requests for comment.
IT and telecoms services provider Econocom has issued E84m worth of notes due 2016.
BNP Paribas acted as sole global coordinator, sole bookrunner and lead manager for an accelerated bookbuild placement with qualified investors.
Together with BNP, ING is acted as cobookrunner, and Petercam as co-lead manager, for the rest of the offering.
The unsubordinated unsecured convertible notes have been issued at 100 per cent of their principal amount of E21, with a four per cent coupon.
Econocom said that if all of the notes issued are converted, four million new ordinary shares would be created, representing a dilution of 15.28 per cent of the group’s ordinary share capital.
Econocom has a market cap of E439.7m, with around 26 million shares outstanding.
The proceeds of the offering will be used for general corporate purposes, to diversify its funding sources, and to finance its acquisition earlier this year of local IT infrastructure firm ESC.
The 4G auction has been pushed back a month to November as regulator BIPT works to ensure compatibility with radars in the 2700MHz- 2900MHz band.
Operators will be invited to submit bids from October 14, with qualified candidates to be decided on October 24 in mind for an auction to start around the end of November.
The new licences will be valid for ten years and then be renewable on a five-year basis.
In January, China Mobile chairman Wang Jianzhou was quoted saying that the Belgian state had approached him to ask whether his company would be interested in acquiring the licences.
Jianzhou said opportunities able to support the development of TD-LTE technology would be of interest.
China Mobile is currently piloting 4G technology in China and South Korea.
BIPT is set to award a consortium comprising cablecos Telenet and Voo the fourth 3G licence before summer.
They were the sole bidders in the auction, which was launched on March 15. No price was disclosed.
In January, Telenet claimed regulatory issues had prevented it from taking part in the process.
Telenet and BIPT declined to comment on how the cableco worked around these regulatory issues, but the latter stated that its council had “established the admissibility of the application”.
The current 3G licence holders are incumbent Belgacom’s unit Proximus, France Telecom’s Mobistar and Dutch KPN’s Base.
