France Telecom looks for further European joint ventures

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France Telecom looks for further European joint ventures

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 28 September, 2009

READ MORE: M&A | Europe | Deutsche Telekom | France Telecom

Since France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom agreed to merge their UK arms, most speculation has centered on whether the German partner would replicate the plan elsewhere, notably in the US. But the French operator also seems to have got a taste for joint ventures, geared to reducing damaging levels of competition and price war in overcrowded European markets.

Switzerland, Belgium and Portugal seem to be in the firing line for FT's plans to share cost and risk with selected rival/partners. Shares in Belgium's Mobistar leapt by nearly 7% on speculation that the Orange owner was about to make a takeover bid and FT's CFO, Gervais Pellissier, said in an interview that consolidation would make sense in Belgium. The French giant already owns 52.9% of the Belgian cellco, and is said to be eyeing a broader alliance that would also include cableco Telenet, which has an MVNO agreement with Mobistar. This could enable the grouping to launch fixed/mobile convergence and quad play offerings to increase their share of the consumers' communications and media spend, boosting market reach and ARPU.

Pellisier indicated in press interviews that FT was not looking for major acquisitions in developed markets, but to increase its stakes in operators where it already had a minority share, or for deals in emerging markets, mainly Africa and the Middle East. Zimbabwe and Tanzania are top of his shopping list apparently, as FT continues to assemble a pan-African footprint using 2G/3G and WiMAX. However, he ruled out acquisitions in South Africa or Nigeria, where the investment required would be too big to justify the risks without full control of a carrier. He also denied talk that FT might reignite a takeover bid for Nordic operator TeliaSonera - a $42bn plan fell apart last year.

In Switzerland, the head of the regulator, ComCom, was also fueling the speculation that FT would add to its empire. Marc Furrer said two of the country's three mobile providers, Orange and Sunrise, might cooperate to build their LTE network, and this led to talk that the deal could go further, creating a bigger counterpoint to incumbent Swisscom. The regulator estimates that a shared build-out by the two smaller players would cost between $1.8bn and $2.7bn. Swisscom had 5.5m subscribers at the end of the second quarter, while Sunrise had just over 2m and Orange 1.7m.