Drahi's Altice Rejects $20 Billion Joint Offer
By Najat Kantouar
France's telecom operator Altice, owned by billionaire Patrick Drahi, rejected a joint non-binding offer to buy a large part of the company for 17 billion euros ($19.74 billion) submitted by peers Bouygues, Orange and Free-iliad group.
The beleaguered telecom said Wednesday that the offer was immediately rejected. The three French telecom majors put in a non-binding offer on Tuesday for most of the assets of Altice's SFR. The deal didn't include SFR's stakes in Intelcia, UltraEdge, XP Fibre nor Altice Technical Services.
Under the deal, Bouygues and Free-iliad would have overseen Altice's business-to-business company, while the three companies would share the business-to-consumer company. Other assets and resources, such as infrastructure and frequencies, would have been shared among all three companies. Bouygues would have taken SFR's mobile network in less densely populated areas, the companies said.
In early afternoon European trading, Bouygues group and Orange shares were trading 8.2% and 3.5% higher following the news.
Write to Najat Kantouar at najat.kantouar@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 15, 2025 06:36 ET (10:36 GMT)
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