French cable firm Numericable in talks to buy mobile operator SFR in $20.6 bn deal

French cable firm Numericable has reached a tentative agreement to buy mobile operator SFR, a unit of media giant Vivendi, in a deal that values France's second-largest mobile company at more than €15 billion ($20.6 billion), Les Echos newspaper yesterday reported.

Vivendi and Numericable now aim to finalise the deal in a few weeks, the newspaper said.

Numericable is 40-per cent owned by Altice, the Luxembourg-based investment vehicle founded by French cable king Patrick Drahi, while US private equity firm Carlyle Group holds around 35 per cent.

A successful deal would see Altice hold more than 50 per cent of the new SFR-Numericable and Vivendi 32 per cent.

The merger would be made with about €8 billion of debt, and would generate synergies of €6 billion, the paper added.

Paris-based SFR provides services for mobile phone, landline, internet, IP television and mobile internet to more than 21 million customers.

SFR was earlier a joint venture between Vivendi and Vodafone, but in 2011 Vodafone sold its entire stake to the French conglomerate (See: Vivendi, Vodafone in talks over SFR stake sale).

Numericable operates a high speed cable network covering close to 10 million households, providing high definition television, video on demand, high speed internet and telephony services.

Numericable is the first operator in France to have deployed its own fibre network in France, which covers over 8 million households.