Bouygues Telecom, Free and Orange maintain their offer despite the rejection of Altice France

The three operators had already submitted a takeover proposal on Tuesday, which was rejected by SFR’s parent company, Altice France.

Orange, Free and Bouygues Telecom are not giving up. The three operators put their joint takeover offer from SFR back on the table on the evening of Wednesday October 15, although it was rejected in the morning by its parent company Altice France. Bouygues Telecom, Orange and Iliad, the parent company of the Free operator, had positioned themselves in an unprecedented manner on Tuesday with a joint proposal to buy back “most of the assets of the operator SFR” for 17 billion euros.

Potential buyers “remain convinced of the relevance of their proposal” And “maintain their offer”they said in a joint statement on Wednesday. They hear “create a constructive dialogue with the Altice Group and its shareholders to consider together how this project could prosper”. With this offer led by three competitors, the market returns to the hypothesis of a merger between operators, unprecedented since the attempted takeover of Bouygues Telecom by Orange abandoned in 2016. The hypothetical takeover, which would take months, even years, would first have to go through a consensus on the amount.

Tuesday evening’s offer put an end to months of speculation accompanying the financial restructuring of Altice France. With debt falling from more than 24 billion to 15.5 billion euros at the beginning of October, the parent company of SFR has moved away from the threat of a debt wall. An operation which placed her in “a healthier financial situation, a greatly improved operational and commercial situation”praised its CEO, Arthur Dreyfuss, at the end of September.

On the side of the unions, who have been expressing for several months the fear of a “dismantling project” from the operator to 8,000 employees, the rejection of the offer has not extinguished concerns. “It’s a lot of concern (…), the takeover by the three other competing operators will result in massive job losses,” Olivier Lelong, CFDT central union delegate at SFR, declared on France Inter. “This is the worst scenario. for us, since the only interest of the three operators is to increase their margins, share nine billion euros in turnover, without thinking about the employees”, he summarizes.