The expected sale of SFR risks being the soap for this summer 2025 as the Pereira affair was that of the summer of 2023. As a reminder, Armando Pereira, number two of Altice France, was arrested in July 2023 by the Portuguese justice, suspected of fraud, corruption and money laundering. This scandal had the merit of bringing the colossal debt of the second French operator to the light.
Since June 2, Altice France, a parent company of SFR, has officially entered the accelerated safeguard procedure with the Paris economic activity court. This procedure must allow it, by fall, to restructure its debt to avoid the bankruptcy. In this case, the telecoms group intends to twist the arm of its creditors to bring its debt from 24 to 15.5 billion euros, in exchange for 45 % of its capital.
This procedure also revived speculation around a sale of SFR. Its rivals, Bouygues Telecom, Free and Orange, would be on the ranks to buy all or part of the brand with a red square. The first two are given favorites in the case of a possible sale to cutting, the historic operator being probably prevented by the anti-trust authorities because of its dominant position on the market.
Bouygues Telecom well positioned
President of the Orange CFE-CGC, Sébastien Crozier sees, in a blog post, Bouygues Telecom as the big winner of a dismantling of SFR. Becoming number two in the sector, the bouygues group’s subsidiary would call into question the position of historic leader of Orange which “Would see a formidable rival in the business market arise”.
According to the trade unionist, “The Competition Authority and the Arcep could impose on Bouygues Telecom” remedies “: disposal of the mobile post, redistribution of shops and frequencies, mainly for the benefit of free, but also orange … A set of musical chairs where each decision would weigh on the future of our jobs. »
BFM Business recalls, for its part, that SFR has shared part of its mobile network for ten years with Bouygues Telecom, the two operators operating 15,000 antennas in common. Last player who arrived on the fixed market and therefore with a lower market share, Bouygues Telecom could be favored by regulators to take up the six million SFR Internet subscribers. For its part, Free would be interested in SFR Business to grow Free Pro on the business market.
Subscribers, stuffing turkeys?
In any case, the return to three operators – unprecedented situation since the arrival of Free in 2012 – would reduce the competitive pressure on the French market and therefore increase the margins of the latter. This prospect of an increase in prices for consumer packages worries the executive.
On July 8, the Minister of Industry and Energy Marc Ferracci tackled this question on CNews and Europe 1. An SFR transfer should not, according to him, be translated as price increases ” too significant and which penalize the telephone bill of the French ”. However, “You have to find an industrial balance […] So that our operators have the capacity to continue investing in the networks. »»
SFR, operator of vital importance
What if by chance, he was a foreign actor who took the bet? Operators from the Middle East, such as the Saudi Said Telecom Company (STC)-already the main shareholder of the Spanish Telefónica-or the Emirati Etisalat (Emirates Telecommunications Corporation), are regularly cited.
Marc Ferracci said he was ” concerned By this hypothesis. If he has not mentioned a possible blockage of the government in the event of a sfr buy -up by a foreign group, he indicates that he will be “ vigilant », Evoking challenges of sovereignty. The newspaper Les Echos Recalls that SFR is classified as an operator of vital importance (OIV) by the military programming law.
SFR is also very present in the public sector. In January 2023, its BTOB subsidiary was retained by the UGAP, a central public purchase, to ensure for three years the protection of communities and hospitals. SFR Business is health data host (HDS).
A nice jackpot for its leaders
The question of employment also arises. The state must be attentive to the fate of some 8,000 SFR employees. A consolidation operation would lead to inevitable duplicates in support functions (on -site technicians, agents of call centers, etc.) but also within the sales network. It is not uncommon to see in the galleries of shopping centers an SFR shop next to that of Orange or Bouygues Telecom.
While operator employees live in a particularly heavy climate of uncertainty, they will learn, by The platformthat their main leaders and members of the Altice France board of directors will receive a nice jackpot in the event of agreement with the creditors. A profit -sharing plan would allow them to receive up to 142.5 million euros.