Giganto French telco merger: Altice makes eyes at Bouygues

Despite Margrethe Vestager – the EU’s anti-trust supremo – railing against telco mergers earlier this month, French mega-company Altice has made a €10bn bid for the telco part of rival Bouygues. Altice has made the bid thorough Numericable-SFR, formed when Numerical bought the SFR network from Vivendi last year for €17bn. A …

[Anonymous Coward]

Need to get out more?

Even thought I have lived in France and, sadly, still visit regularly, I had never heard of this Altice company. :(

Likewise, is Iliad the same as Free or is it a different French telephony company?

[bpfh]

Re: Need to get out more?

First of all the correction: "When Numericable brought SFR" (and not Numerical).

I have heard of Altice before, but not much. It's a dutch company, but headquartered in Luxembourg, and yes, it's the company that owns Numericable (orginially a cable TV operator, branched out into cable internet) that brought up SFR a short while back.

As for Free, yes, it's owned by Illiad, who owns a shedload of other services, including telephony, hosting, and a while back, minitel services. Mostly pr0n... Actually, Illiad made it's fortune out of the French equivalent of 0898 chatlines in the 80's... (and before that, a couple of sex shops and several shady deals)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Need to get out more?

Many thanks for filling me in!