Jean-Bernard Lévy, Chairman of France's Vivendi said yesterday that he is confident that he can persuade Vodafone to sell its minority stake in the French mobile phone operator SFR - eventually. Vivendi owns 56% of SFR, with Vodafone holding the remainder.
Mr Lévy told the Financial Times "I am not campaigning, just waiting patiently because I think there will be an opportunity one day even if they tell me they would like to keep it and they are not sellers."
This is a turn around from 2003, when Vivendi was itself looking vulnerable to a takeover of the entire company by Vodafone which was expected to then sell off the non-mobile assets in order to gain ownership of SFR.
He stressed that the two companies have a good working partnership in SFR, but expected that Vodafone's expansion into emerging markets could be the catalyst for a sale if the company needed a lump-sum of cash rapidly. Vodafone's Arun Sarin recently said that he expected the company to make at least one sizable acquisition in Africa this year.
SFR has been valued at around US$43 billion - giving Vodafone a potential cash payout of US$19 billion if the company was to sell. Subscriber data from the Mobile World notes that SFR had an estimates 18.2 million subscribers as of last September. This represents a market share of just over 36%.
Vivendi originally took control of the mobile operator after it beat Vodafone in a battle to aquire British Telecom's 26% stake in Cegetel. Cegetel itself controls
80% of the GSM network, SFR - hence Vivendi gained an effective 56%
controlling interest in the network.
On the web: Financial Times - Mobile World
Posted to the site on 17th January 2008
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/28659.php