Vivendi, Vodafone in talks over SFR stake sale
14 Mar 2011
French telecoms and entertainment major Vivendi is not willing to cough up more than £6 billion for the 44 per cent stake in SFR, the second-largest mobile phone operator in France, from Vodafone, which, however, is expecting about £8 billion.
Vivendi and Vodafone – which together control SFR – have started negotiating a price for the 44 per cent stake that the latter has in the company. While the two companies have refused to comment on the talks, there is speculation that Vivendi is not willing to offer more than £6 billion for the stake.
Jean-Bernard Lévy, the chief executive of Vivendi, has for long been wanting to acquire 100 per cent ownership of SFR. He, however, told a recent conference that he would walk away from a deal with Vodafone if he found the price to be too high.
The joint venture between the two telecom majors reported a 1.2 per cent rise in 2010 revenues to $3.57 billion. SFR had a total customer base of about 21.3 million mobile phone subscribers and 4.6 million high-speed internet customers towards the end of 2010.
Vittorio Colao, Vodafone's chief executive, has also ruled out selling the stake in SFR at a lower price. Colao recently sold Vodafone's minority stakes in Chinese and Japanese mobile phone companies and is also looking at the possibility of off-loading its 45 per cent stake in US-based Verizon Wireless.
Vivendi sold its 20 per cent stake in NBC Universal for $5.8 billion in January and is now keen to take full ownership of French companies such as SFR and Canal Plus, where it has significant stake. It is also targetting the 20 per cent stake in Canal Plus France which French media group Lagardere owns.
The French entertainment and telecoms major has interests across video games (Activision Blizzard), music (Universal Music group), telecoms (SFR and Maroc Telecom Group) and pay TV (Canal Plus).
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