Patrick Drahi, the owner of Hot Telecommunication Systems Ltd. (TASE: HOT.B1), will acquire the SFR cable and mobile unit from Vivendi SA (Euronext: VIV) for €11.75 billion, plus shares, if exclusive talks over the next three weeks are successful. Drahi will acquire SFR through Altice SA (Euronext: ATC) unit Numericable SA (Euronext: NUME).
Vivendi chose Drahi's bid over bids by rival Martin Bouygues and Xavier Niel, who also competes against Drahi in Israel's mobile sector, where Golan Telecom Ltd. is a rival of Hot Mobile Ltd.. The European media is portraying Drahi's win as an outsider beating the French establishment, in view of Drahi's Moroccan origins. "Reuters" says, "When Franco-Israeli telecoms billionaire Patrick Drahi entered the race to acquire Vivendi's SFR, his powerful rivals seemed to suddenly agree on a common goal: keeping him out. It said that Bouygues rallied his strong government connections against Drahi, and that Niel slammed Drahi for skirting taxes with his company based in Amsterdam and homes in Geneva and Tel Aviv.
The "Financial Times" says that if Vivendi and Numericable close the deal in their negotiations over the next three weeks, the tie-up will give Numericable the chance to offer cable and broadband to SFR’s 22 million mobile subscribers. It notes, "A Vivendi board meeting on Friday morning was preceded by intense lobbying on the part of industry minister Arnaud Montebourg in favour of Bouygues’ rival offer. Mr. Montebourg said there were “problems and questions” with Altice’s bid, including on tax and competition grounds."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 16, 2014
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