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Four criteria have played for Numericable: value, execution risk, liquidity and industrial project.
Caisse des Dépôts is on the lookout, and offers financial support Bouygues in case the deal would not happen.
Numericable and SFR are engaged. Friday morning, the Supervisory Board of Vivendi voted unanimously with one voice (Pascal Cagni, Apple Europe ex-president) entered into exclusive negotiations with the controlled by Patrick Drahi cable operator. The directors have therefore preferred contractor to 2,000 employees without mobile network, Bouygues, industrial known which employs 8,500 people in the fixed and mobile telephony. The aim is to sign the deed of sale of the second French telecom operator Numericable within three weeks. The transaction will then be a consultation with employees and will be reviewed by the Competition Authority, to be completed in the second half.
If the choice was clear Vivendi Friday, three weeks granted to Patrick Drahi could also be utilized by the clan of losers to refine a new proposal. The owner of SFR said that only after this period and after further consideration of the offer Numericable he would "stop the other options considered" selling Bouygues or introduction Stock Exchange of its subsidiary. If Fleur Pellerin, the Minister of Digital Economy, noted yesterday in the "Journal du Dimanche" Vivendi's decision, the government would not be completely demobilized. In an interview with "Echos", says Jean-Pierre Jouyet and "Caisse des Dépôts, which is a shareholder of Vivendi, could, if the hypothesis were to materialize, and without incurring Bpifrance, support capital rapprochement between Vivendi and SFR and Bouygues. " According to our information, the public institution would even be willing to go up to 5% of the capital of this possible new set. Arnaud Montebourg, who did everything to support Bouygues, do not admit defeat and ensures that "the struggle continues" (see next page).
Crazy scenario
For now, it is Numericable was chosen by Vivendi to buy its subsidiary SFR. This merger created a new French telecom giant number two behind Orange. It will have a little more than 18 million subscribers in mobile and 6.7 million in the fixed, for a turnover of € 11.5 billion. It is also one of the largest transactions in Europe since last year. "And there is something to be proud of his country, with all these French billionaires to the negotiating table," says one banker, referring Xavier Niel (Free), Martin Bouygues and Patrick Drahi. For many, the decision of the Board of Vivendi is incomprehensible, because the losing side had won in the opinion.
Indeed, the offensive against Martin Bouygues in two weeks has been meteoric, and even brave - or the financial analysts . nor the government had not considered this crazy "scenario we had offers of extraordinary quality, greets a investment banker Vivendi. Candidates were able to put over $ 10 billion in cash on the table, so close in a few days. The speed with which Bouygues moved is incredible for an industrialist. And what ingenuity, what a spectacular trading weekend with Xavier Niel! "
Despite the feat, Numericable has always remained the favorite, says a source close to Vivendi. This is confirmed by a frame in the clan Bouygues-Free: "Despite the media and stock market boom, we knew it was far from won. "And for objective reasons. The supervisory board, and before him the committee to consider nominations (six meetings), led by Henri Lachmann who dedicated it "50 to 60 hours," voted based on 4 criteria. First, the value of SFR - roughly equivalent, close to 15 billion euros and 19 billion before synergies after. Price - 11,750,000,000 in cash against $ 11.3 billion for Bouygues - weighed in the balance. "450 million euros, no spit, says Henri Lachmann. But the main thing was the complexity generated by the Bouygues proposal, with the risk that competitive remedies destroy synergies and social difficulties delay the execution. "
Execution risk was the second key criterion. Even after the sale of the network Free, competitive risk for Bouygues remained high. In addition, the integration of two giants doing the same jobs promised last three or four years, with 700 shops to close. Third, liquidity, related to the execution: if sites protracted, markets have time to fall, the price war can be restarted, reducing the minority interest Vivendi "Do not lose sight of. that the group's objective was to get [SFR]. On the one hand, only 32% retained with a "put" to fall to 30%, another 40% were kept and dust "says Henri Lachmann. Fourth, the industrial project. To a source close to Vivendi, the directors were eager to escape the trap of mobile: "With Bouygues, we created a mobile giant, with one perspective the decline of its market share . And providing a network Free cheaply, we strengthened to the extreme. "The statements of Xavier Niel Thursday evening in" Les Echos "to support the project Bouygues had the opposite effect. The merger with Numericable, it was synonymous with growth, with a large empty fixed network and market power of the brand SFR. "The convergence of fixed-mobile offers, is the sense of history, with online sights very high speed, "says Tariq Ashraf, at Bearing Point. It is not sure that we should, as leader of Bouygues, to lament "the victory of financial capitalism of the few against the industrial project and the public interest. "