Altice Seals Numericable-SFR Merger

PARIS--Telecom holding group Altice SA completed the purchase of French mobile company SFR from Vivendi SA (VIV.FR) on Thursday, in a move that will create France's second-largest telecom player.

Altice and Vivendi said they finalized the $23-billion deal to merge Altice's French cable company Numericable Group SA with SFR.

Vivendi said it has received 13.37 billion euros ($10.72 billion) in cash, on top of the 20% it will still hold in the combined Numericable-SFR group. Altice controls around 60% of the new group and the rest is free float.

The new company begins trading on the Paris market under the name Numerciable-SFR as of Friday.

Numericable on Thursday also achieved the approval from France's antitrust watchdog for its acquisition of Virgin Mobile, which it agreed to buy from Omea Telecom for 325 million euros ($405.63 million) earlier this year. Virgin Mobile France is a so-called mobile virtual network operator, which offers mobile services using other company's network infrastructure.

Vivendi is contributing EUR200 million to the purchase of Virgin mobile, which will also be merged into the Numericable-SFR group. Together, the new entity forms France's second-largest telecom operator behind Orange SA.

-Write to Ruth Bender at [e-mail]

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