Franklin advises Altice and Numericable on M&A corporate aspects of its bid for SFR

On Saturday April 5, Vivendi announced that it had chosen the Altice/Numericable bid for the acquisition of SFR by Numericable Group, for €13.5 billion in cash, a potential €750 million supplement and a 20 % stake in the combined entity, resulting in a deal value of circa  €17 billion.

The resulting Numericable/SFR group will become the 2^nd largest telecom provider in France.

Altice chairman Patrick Drahi said: “what made us win  is our long-term preparation [for this deal]”.

Franklin advised Altice/Numericable on the M&A aspects of this major transaction from the outset, with a team led by partner Alexandre Marque and including Of Counsel Magali Masson, Christian Sauer and Kai Völpel, associates Laurent Halimi, Djésia Meziani, Nathaniel Binquet, Virginie Brault-Scaillet, Viktoriya Bukina, Paloma Champilou and Nay Kettaneh, as well as Of Counsel Charles Amar and Olivier Borenstejn on real estate and finance issues; partner Jérôme Michel, assisted by Of Counsel Jean-Pierre Delvigne advised on antitrust issues, while partner Bradley Joslove and associate Eléonore Varet advised on TMT aspects.

This acquisition is the latest in a series of fifteen transactions completed over the past twelve months on which Franklin led by Alexandre Marque, has assisted Altice/Numericable, including, in particular, Altice’s IPO on Euronext Amsterdam and Numericable Group’s IPO on Euronext Paris, Altice’s takeover of Numericable Group, the acquisition of Outremer Telecom and Mobius in the French overseas territories, the acquisition of telecom providers Tricom and Orange Dominica in the Dominican Republic, the acquisition of Portuguese cable operator ONI and the acquisition of the  APAX shareholding  in cable operators Cabovisao in Portugal and Coditel in Belgium and Luxembourg.

Press Release, April 9th, 2014