A deal for French telecoms group Orange to take over its rival Bouygues is imminent and a preliminary agreement could be presented on Tuesday when Orange publishes its 2015 earnings, French weekly le Journal du Dimanche (JDD) reported yesterday.
JDD said Orange was in intense talks with the two other French telecom operators — Free and Numericable SFR — over the weekend with a view to sell to them parts of Bouygues’ assets in order to assure the go-ahead of competition authorities.
Orange was not immediately available for comment, but the JDD quoted the company as saying that nothing would be announced about the deal on Tuesday.
JDD said Free is looking at buying Bouygues’ network and frequencies for about €2bn.
It also said that Free would take over a large part of Bouygues’ traditional mobile customers and that SFR its “low-cost” subscriptions, while the two would share Bouygues’ Internet customers. In all, Free would spend between €3bn to €3.5bn and SFR €2.5bn on the deals, it reported.
Orange’s chief executive said earlier this month that tie-up talks with Bouygues should conclude by the end of February or early March and reiterated previous declarations that the chances of a deal were 50-50.
Orange is in talks to buy Bouygues Telecom for about €10bn ($11.25bn) in cash and shares, in a deal which could see Bouygues receive a 15% stake in Orange valued at €8bn, and the rest in cash.