Vivendi has completed the sale of its remaining 20% stake in Numericable-SFR to Altice for €40 per share.
The deal – proposed by Altice on 18 February and accepted by Vivendi on 27 February – saw Altice pay €1.8 billion in cash to Vivendi on Wednesday for half of the stake. A second payme nt of €1.9 billion plus 3.8% annual interest will be made by 7 April 2016 for the remainder.
Vivendi acquired the stake as part of its €17 billion agreement to sell its SFR mobile arm to Altice, parent of cableco Numericable, in April 2014. The deal was approved by regulators in late October.
Under the terms of the deal, Vivendi agreed to contribute €200 million of the proceeds to help finance Numericable’s acquisition of Omer Telecom, parent of mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Virgin Mobile France. That deal closed in December 2014.
In a statement, Altice and Numericable-SFR said once the transaction closes it will cancel 10% of the shares while the remaining 10% will be held by an entity wholly-owned, indirectly, by Altice.
That will leave the France-based cable group with a 70.4% stake in Numericable-SFR.
