Altice Offers €10.9 Billion to Vivendi for Majority Stake in SFR

PARIS--Altice SA (ATC.AE), French businessman Patrick Drahi's holding company, Tuesday confirmed it had made a firm offer to French conglomerate Vivendi SA (VIV.FR) for a majority stake in its mobile telephone unit SFR.

Mr. Drahi's company, which controls telecom company Numericable SA (NUM.FR), has offered 10.9 billion euros (about $15.15 billion) in cash and would grant a 32% stake to Vivendi in the new merged Numericable-SFR unit, Altice said Tuesday in a statement. The offer is valid until Friday, the company added.

"We believe that this is the most compelling offer for Vivendi and the French telecommunications market," Altice said in the statement. Merging SFR and Numericable is "the only credible project to bring fiber and very high speed broadband to the entire country, delivering credible and realizable advantages for employees, consumers and suppliers in France."

Altice has maintained its bid after French conglomerate Bouygues SA (EN.FR) made a rival offer for the control of SFR last week. Bouygues offered EUR10.5 billion to merge its mobile phone unit Bouygues Telecom with SFR.

To fend off opposition from antitrust authorities, Bouygues offered to sell part of its infrastructure network to smaller telephone company Iliad SA (ILD.FR) for EUR1.8 billion.

Write to Inti Landauro at [e-mail]

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires