The recovery of Altice’s debt at the end of February gives its founder Patrick Drahi a greater latitude to consider strategic operations. At the heart of discussions: the future of SFR, second telecom operator in France. If there is no official communication to date, several players in the sector, in France and abroad, closely monitor the group’s intentions.
Among the table options, a direct SFR sale seems difficult to lead, given the size of the operator (around 10 billion euros in turnover), despite disappointing results in recent years, with the loss of one and a half million subscribers in the past two years.
Other scenarios envisage a transfer by blocks, a process already started with the sale of certain subsidiaries such as data centers or xpfibres, or the sale of the media center, including BFMTV and RMC, to the CMA-CGM shipowner. The distribution of assets could also be the subject of an agreement between French operators, provided that the competitive constraints imposed by the Competition Authority and the European Commission.
Orange, Bouygues Telecom and Iliad (Free) would follow the file closely, and contacted various business banks, but other actors, including international, could also enter the dance, like the Saudi STC or the Emirati Etisalat, who recently expressed their interest in investments in Europe.
