The board of French telecoms and media group Vivendi will review offers for its mobile unit SFR this week, it is understood.
Two companies, telecoms holding Altice and conglomerate Bouygues, are currently vying for a merger with the wireless player,…
The board of French telecoms and media group Vivendi will review offers for its mobile unit SFR this week, it is understood.
Two companies, telecoms holding Altice and conglomerate Bouygues, are currently vying for a merger with the wireless player, which would in any case shake up the French market.
Altice has for the first time today publicly given details of its bid, saying it 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”. The proposal is valid until 14 March.
Last week, Bouygues offered Vivendi €10.5bn in cash and 46% of a merged Bouygues Telecom-SFR entity. Yesterday, it also agreed to sell its network to Free Mobile for €1.8bn in case of a deal with SFR in an effort to alleviate regulatory concerns.
At this stage, it appears that Bouygues has the upper hand over Altice: Bouygues has made the highest offer and the deal has received backing from industry minister Arnaud Montebourg, hoping it could put an end to the sector’s price war and prevent job losses.
However, despite the agreement with Free, Bouygues’ offer might still face insurmountable regulatory hurdles as it would consolidate the market from four to three operators. A deal between Numericable and SFR is unlikely to face similar resistance as the cableco does not have any mobile offering.
