Altice Turns Down an Offer

The European telecommunications market is having a bit of an M&A drama moment. Yesterday, three of France’s largest telecommunications providers made a joint offer to buy their rival, Altice France. The three are Bougues Telecom, Free-iliad Group, and Orange, and the bid is said to be worth an enterprise value of €17B, or $19.72B.

The idea, apparently is to split up Altice France amongst the three buyers, with 43% going to Bouygues, 30% to Free-iliad, and 27% for Orange. The B2B stuff would go to Bouygues, while all three would share the B2C stuff and the infrastructure assets. Altice’s main asset in France is the operator SFR, and this proposal includes most of that company but not stakes in Intelcia, UltraEdge, XP Fibre and Altice Technical Services.

Gut for now, anyway, all that is moot. A few hours ago Altice France ‘immediately rejected’ the offer. They didn’t say much beyond that, but this probably isn’t the final word on the topic. Consolidation in the French telecommunications market seems to be something that all expect, and Altice’s debt load is making this look like a logical option.

It seems likely that a follow-up bid could, umm, follow. Analysts suggest that Altice would be looking for something more in the €20B range. And of course there are the regulators to consider for any deal that does pass muster with everyone involved in such a multi-party deal.

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Categories: Mergers and Acquisitions · Wireless