Join our community of traders FOR FREE!

  • Learn
  • Improve yourself
  • Get Rewards
Learn More

The bidding war over Vivendi SAs phone unit SFR between Bouygues SA and Altice SA seems to be heating up after Arnaud Montebourg, who is the French Industry Minister, said that according to him Vivendi SA prefers the offer of Altice SA cable holding.

Mr. Montebourg said in an interview for Europe1 radio station, which was cited by Bloomberg: “I understood that the heads of Vivendi wanted to sell SFR to Numericable, no matter what. This can be a problem because the company is very small, a small company taking on a huge amount of debt.” He also commented: “We know Mr. Bouygues and he said there wouldn’t be job cuts. The state is not the owner of the one or the other. The state expressed a preference. There are some problems: overwhelming debt, no competition in cable, fiscal problems. We are going to solve these problems now.”

Yesterday it became clear that both competitors have increased the cash portions of their bids over the SFR unit. In addition, substantial stakes in the new entity that is to be formed after a merger are being offered by the rivals in order to attract the attention of Vivendis board members.

On Thursday, Bouygues SA confirmed that it had raised its cash offer from 10.5 to 11.3 billion euros (15.71 billion dollars). People with knowledge of the process and the bids reported that Altice SA also raised its initial offer from 10.9 to 11.75 billion euros through its cable operator Numericable Group SA. Altice SA, however, refused to make any comments on the situation. Vivendi SA also declined to comment.

The board of Vivendi SA has scheduled a meeting today. It is expected to discuss the offers of Altice and Bouygues, each amounting to more than 20 billion dollars, as well as a third case scenario, which includes the original idea of the SFR units spin-off.

Vivendi faces a tough decision, because the company has been recently put under pressure by French regulators, who shared their beliefs that reducing the network operators in the country from four to three would reduce competition and have a negative impact.

Vivendi SA fell by 0.33% by 9:41 GMT in Paris to 19.80 euros per share, marking a one-year change of +18.88%. The company is valued at 26.50 billion euros. According to the Financial Times, the 21 analysts offering 12-month price targets for Vivendi SA have a median target of 21.80 euros, with a high estimate of 27.00 euros and a low estimate of 15.00 euros. The median estimate represents a 9.71% increase from the previous close of 19.87 euros.

TradingPedia.com is a financial media specialized in providing daily news and education covering Forex, equities and commodities. Our academies for traders cover Forex, Price Action and Social Trading.

Related News

  • Tesla shares gain the most in over 13 months on Monday, strong quarterly vehicle deliveries supportTesla shares gain the most in over 13 months on Monday, strong quarterly vehicle deliveries support Tesla shares soared to a record high on Monday, reacting to better-than-projected quarterly vehicle deliveries posted a day earlier. The stocks performance bolstered the manufacturers market capitalization to $48 billion, a figure which […]
  • Forex Market: USD/JPY daily trading forecastForex Market: USD/JPY daily trading forecast Yesterday’s trade saw USD/JPY within the range of 102.91-103.85. The pair closed at 103.71, gaining 0.74% on a daily basis.At 8:05 GMT today USD/JPY was up 0.06% for the day to trade at 103.82. The pair broke all three key weekly […]
  • South Africa inflation eases in March, Rand gainsSouth Africa inflation eases in March, Rand gains Annual consumer price inflation in South Africa has eased to 5.3% in March from a four-month high of 5.6% in February, the latest data by Statistics South Africa showed.March has been the 10th consecutive month, when the annual […]
  • Forex Market: EUR/GBP daily trading forecastForex Market: EUR/GBP daily trading forecast Yesterday’s trade saw EUR/GBP within the range of 0.7835-0.7903. The pair closed at 0.7869, losing 0.37% on a daily basis.At 7:13 GMT today EUR/GBP was up 0.03% for the day to trade at 0.7874. The pair touched a daily high at 0.7882 at […]
  • Elon Musk: Twitter will pay to content creators for ads in repliesElon Musk: Twitter will pay to content creators for ads in replies Key Moments:*Elon Musk announces that Twitter will start paying verified content creators for ads in their replies. *The first payment block is estimated to be around $5 million. *Only verified creators will be eligible for the ad […]
  • Forex Market: GBP/USD daily trading forecastForex Market: GBP/USD daily trading forecast Friday’s trade saw GBP/USD within the range of 1.5465-1.5527. The pair closed at 1.5514, remaining unchanged on a daily basis. The daily low has also been the lowest level since July 14th, when a low of 1.5449 was reported. The cross fell […]