Altice owner Patrick Drahi has immediately rejected a €17 billion offer for its SFR mobile unit in France.

The offer was placed by a consortium of French telcos, including Orange, Bouygues Telecom, and Free, yesterday (October 14).

The Financial Times reported that the three telcos planned to split the assets of Altice’s mobile unit SFR between them, in a move that would effectively consolidate the French mobile market from four to three.

It’s reported that the deal on the table involved SFR’s consumer business, which includes mobile and fixed line broadband customers, being split between Bouygues, Free, and Orange.

Other assets, such as SFR’s fixed line network and mobile spectrum, would also be split between the three carriers. As part of the offer, Bouygues would have stumped up 43 percent, while Free would have paid 30 percent and Orange 27 percent.

However, the deal was quickly rejected by Drahi, as first reported by Bloomberg, and then confirmed by Orange.

Drahi has been pushing to sell assets, as Altice’s debts have swelled to tens of billions of euros.

Drahi wants more

The offer is said to be far short of the near €30bn ($34.88bn) that Drahi wants for the carrier.

SFR has around 26 million mobile customers across France. But the telco’s parent company, Altice, is looking to ease its overall debt, which currently sits at €15.5bn ($18bn) after a debt restructuring earlier this year.

The breakup of SFR is poised to benefit Bouygues the most, given the company already has a RAN infrastructure sharing deal in place with Altice.

The offer isn’t a surprise, given reports over the summer suggested the three telcos could make an offer to buy out SFR assets, as part of plans to break up the telco.

Orange CEO Christel Heydemann previously suggested the carrier was interested in making a move for SFR, stating “a need for consolidation.”

“We do see a need for consolidation,” she noted in July. “We think this is true in France, and I think this is true in Europe.”

Altice sales

Altice has sold a number of key assets in the last couple of years, including its 24.5 percent stake in UK telecoms giant BT to Bharti Airtel, in a deal estimated to be worth about $4bn at the time. Drahi only increased Altice UK’s stake in BT to 24.5 percent in May 2023, and even had plans to increase it to nearly 30 percent.

However, after years of acquisitions, the company has been looking to shift assets in order to pay down its mounting debt.

The company is open to selling its telecoms business and recently spun off its French data center assets, forming a new company with more than 250 facilities in France, which were then sold to Morgan Stanley.

Altice has been in talks over a deal to sell its Portuguese mobile unit, and has separately looked to sell off its data center unit in the country.