French conglomerate Bouygues has made an offer for the telecom arm of Vivendi that would give the seller a bigger potential payday than a rival bid but faces more regulatory risk.Bouygues, with interests from telecoms to construction, offered 10.5 billion euros ($14.4 billion) in cash for Vivendi's SFR and 46 percent of the new company in a planned spin-off. It valued SFR at 14.5 billion euros before cost savings from the deal and 19 billion euros after.A competing bid from French cable operator Numericable included 11 billion euros in cash, granting Vivendi a 32 percent stake in the new company, sources said earlier.A tie-up between SFR and Bouygues would create Europe's seventh-biggest telecom group in terms of sales. In France it would rank ahead of current market leader Orange in terms of market share.
Orange SA, formerly France Telecom SA, is a France-based company that is engaged, principally, in the provision of integrated telecommunications services. Shares of ORAN traded higher by 10.89% or $1.3691/share to $13.94. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $9.10 and as high as $14.68. On average, 621190 shares of ORAN exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 891380.
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