French service providers circle La Poste Mobile

Source: SFR

French service providers Free, Bouygues Telecom and Orange have each made a bid to acquire a 51% majority stake on MVNO La Poste Mobile, according to financial daily Les Echos, with 49% shareholder SFR reportedly inclined to sell rather than bid itself.

La Poste Mobile, majority owned by the French postal service with 2.3 million customers, making it the number five French mobile operator, would add a significant subscriber base to any acquiring operator.

SFR, part of heavily indebted Altice France, has a veto over whoever buys the majority stake and a pre-emptive first right to acquire.

According to Les Echos, however, SFR is leaning towards a sale rather than an acquisition. Its parent group has already put multiple assets up for sale in a bid to reduce its debt pile, with a number of investors most recently lining up to acquire its prized French fibre business XpFibre as well as Altice International’s Portuguese operation.

The sale of La Poste Mobile would likely lead to a change of wholesale network for the MVNO, which currently uses the SFR network.

A sale would give La Poste a cash inflow to enable it to continue supporting its core mail delivery mission, which is in decline as elsewhere.

According to Les Echos, the bids submitted value the mobile operator at between €600-€750 million.