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PARIS (Reuters) - The board of France's Vivendi (>> VIVENDI) is to meet on Friday to debate two competing bids to buy its mobile and fixed operator SFR, a deal that could reshape Europe's third-biggest telecom market.
Conglomerate Bouygues (>> BOUYGUES) and cable group Numericable (>> NUMERICABLE) are vying for SFR and both raised their bids late on Wednesday to try to capture the prize.
For Vivendi, having two bidders for SFR is a surprising twist in a saga that began in spring 2012, when veteran chairman Jean-Rene Fourtou declared there would be "no taboo" in re-examining the 160-year-old group's unwieldy holdings that ranged from video games to broadband in Brazil.
Fourtou became convinced that Vivendi should exit telecoms, to focus more on its media businesses, after seeing the damage wrought by a price war in France touched off by low-cost player Iliad (>> ILIAD).
Once the group's cash cow, SFR began to drag down Vivendi's results and core operating profit halved from 2011 levels to 1.07 billion euros at the end of 2013.
To revamp Vivendi, Fourtou in July 2013 sold the profitable and growing video game unit Activision Blizzard to pay down debt, and in November he sold Maroc Telecom (>> Maroc Telecom), raising in total roughly 10.4 billion euros for both.
The stage was set to split off SFR into a separate company by July, but now that option looks less likely with Numericable and Bouygues swooping in with bids.
Bouygues, which is now third place in French mobile, wants to buy SFR to shore up its telecom business, which has been hit hard by the arrival of Iliad's Free Mobile service.
For Numericable, now primarily a seller of television and broadband, a tie-up with SFR would allow it to become a major player in mobile and grab a large network of stores and sales staff.
Vivendi's board will debate the merits of both bids, as well as the spin off option, and may make a decision by the day's end to open exclusive negotiations with Bouygues or Numericable.
Alternatively, the board, which also includes vice-chairman and second-largest shareholder Vincent Bollore, could choose to take more time to weigh its options.
Lastly, Vivendi could shelve the two bids and pursue the spin off, although in that case it would pass up the billions in cash that the two bidders are offering.
Bouygues has offered Vivendi 11.3 billion euros ($15.7 billion) in cash and a 43 percent stake in the combined entity, which would be spun off and listen on the stock market if regulatory approval was secured.
A combined Bouygues-SFR would be France's biggest mobile carrier with 32 million customers and 42 percent market share compared with 35 percent for current leader Orange (>> ORANGE SA).
Numericable on March 5 bid 10.9 billion euros in cash and a 32 percent stake in the new company. Three people close to the situation, but without direct knowledge of the Numericable bid, said on Thursday that the company had raised the cash portion of its bid by as much as 850 million euros.
(Editing by Anthony Barker)
By Leila Abboud
