French telco trio raises bid for SFR to €20.35bn

• Bouygues Telecom, Iliad and Orange had their initial €17bn joint bid to acquire Altice France/SFR rejected in October 2025
• Now they are back with a near 20% hike in their takeover offer
• Altice France has given the telco trio an exclusive window until 15 May to finalise the terms
• The news comes as the European Commission prepares to loosen M&A guidelines

Having failed last October with their initial €17bn bid to jointly acquire most of the assets of Altice France, which operates mainly under the brand SFR, the French telco trio of Bouygues Telecom, Iliad Group and Orange have tabled a new and much improved offer of €20.35bn and, as a result, have entered into exclusive negotiations with Altice France with a view to finalising terms by 15 May. 

While there is still no certainty that a firm agreement will be reached and a transaction completed, the potential for a deal to be agreed and completed is much greater this time around. Last October’s offer was rejected immediately, forcing the bidding trio to regroup and return for fresh negotiations, with the operators announcing in January that they were engaged in a due diligence process. 

Now, with a bid that is almost 20% higher and with Altice France’s owner, billionaire telecom tycoon Patrick Drahi, as keen as ever to offload assets in order to reduce his Altice empire’s heavy debt load (pegged at about $50bn), the prospects for a deal are improved. The general environment is also being helped by reports that the European Commission is preparing a major overhaul of its merger and acquisition rules and guidelines in order to help companies in the region gain greater scale and improve their chances of becoming international business champions: Major telcos, such as Orange, have been among the most vocal in calling for fewer M&A restrictions in European Union markets. 

Naturally, the bidders are stressing how such a takeover would ensure “continuity for SFR customers”, as well as help to focus resources and strengthen the technology investment environment in France while maintaining strong competition in the market.

The deal proposes that Bouygues Telecom, Iliad (which offers its services under the Free brand) and Orange, all of which currently compete with SFR in the French market, would acquire the majority of assets operated by Altice France/SFR. It would exclude stakes held in IT consultancy ACS/Intelcia, fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) operator XP Fibre (in which other bidders are competing to acquire’s Altice’s stake), datacentre operator Ultraedge and Altice Technical Services, as well as Altice France's operations in the French overseas departments and regions.

Bouygues Telecom, Iliad and Orange plan to split the planned acquired assets as follows:

• The enterprise business and customers would be taken over by Bouygues Telecom;
• The consumer business and customers would be shared between Bouygues Telecom, Iliad and Orange;
• Other assets, in particular infrastructure and spectrum, would be shared between three joint bidders, except for SFR’s mobile network in less densely populated areas, which would be taken over by Bouygues Telecom.

With that split of the assets in mind, Bouygues Telecom would pay 42% of the total price (€8.55bn), Iliad would pay 31% (€6.3bn) and Orange 27% (€5.5bn).  

Of course there are still many hurdles to overcome, including (and in particular) potential intervention from the French competition authorities, as the deal would reduce the number of major infrastructure-based telcos from four to three. But the hopeful trio will no doubt point to the ongoing healthy mobile and broadband sector competition in the UK where the merger of Vodafone UK and Three last year to form VodafoneThree, a move that reduced the UK’s integrated telco sector to three main players, does not appear to have hampered the ability of end users to source competitive deals.

Should any terms be agreed and regulatory approvals gained, it would also take a long time to conclude what would be a very complex asset split, so don’t expect the French market to change much before 2028.

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV