The founder and majority shareholder of Iliad, Xavier Niel, has decided to strengthen his control over the telecom group by launching a share buyback operation. The aim is to take the share off the stock market.

This simplified takeover bid, aimed at holding all the shares not held, is set at 182 euros per share, i.e. approximately 60% above the last price. This announcement caused Iliad's share price to rise by 61% on the Paris stock exchange in the early morning hours of Friday 30 July.

The operation was initiated by HoldCo II, a company controlled by Xavier Niel. He holds, directly and indirectly, 70.6% of the company's capital and 78.7% of its voting rights.

Xavier Niel and Iliad's senior executives and historical shareholders, who have undertaken to tender their shares to the offer, hold directly and indirectly 74.9% of the capital and 83.6% of the voting rights of the group. "At the end of the offer, if the number of shares not tendered to the offer does not represent more than 10% of Iliad's capital and voting rights, HoldCo II will ask the Autorité des marchés financiers to implement a squeeze-out procedure," the company said in a statement.

Founded in 1999, Free's parent company has operations in France, Italy and Poland. Europe's sixth-largest mobile operator by subscribers, Iliad has 42.7 million subscribers and generated revenues of €5.9 billion in 2020.

"Iliad's new phase of development requires rapid transformation and significant investment, which will be easier to achieve as an unlisted company. Our ambition for Iliad is to accelerate its development to make it a leader in telecommunications in Europe," Xavier Niel said in a statement.

This is not an isolated operation in the telecom sector. Indeed, last January, Patrick Drahi, founder and majority shareholder of the Altice group, also delisted his European group (SFR, RMC, BFMTV...). The operation was intended to make it easier for Altice Europe to implement its strategy and to focus on long-term objectives, without having its quarterly performance scrutinised by the markets.

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Source : Challenges

Free had been involved for several years in co-financing the FTTH networks deployed by Orange and was challenging several terms of its contract with the incumbent operator. The Regulatory Authority had settled this dispute in Free's favour, but Orange had been challenging the legality of the dispute since then. The Paris Court of Appeal upheld Arcep's decision in an order dated 26th September 2019.

The planned renewal of the term and conditions of access to Orange's infrastructure was contested by Free. Arcep confirmed that they did not meet Free's needs for visibility and transparency and therefore imposed on Orange to grant a right of access for a defined period of time and at least 40 years. In its decision, the Court of Appeal confirmed that these conditions are "not sufficiently precise in view of Free's need for visibility over the effective duration of this right".

In addition, Arcep considered that it was justified and reasonable for Free to obtain information on the formation of access tariffs for Orange FTTH networks in less dense private initiative areas. This was also supported by the Court of Appeal, which stated that these tariffs were "directly linked to the financial terms of the bid, which it seeks to ensure is fair".

Finally, the Regulatory Authority considered that the incumbent operator should allow Free to connect mobile base stations in less dense areas of private initiative via the extra optical fibres of the FTTH network deployed by Orange and co-financed by Free. A point that has not been contested by Orange in its appeal.

In addition, the Paris Court of Appeal held that the decision did not affect business confidentiality and confirmed Arcep's analysis. And noting that the information that Orange must provide to Free pursuant to the decision "is characterized by a very high degree of aggregation, both geographically and by expense items".

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Source : Le Monde Informatique

Free's parent company has just sold its passive mobile telecommunications infrastructure in France and Italy to Cellnex. This Spanish operator is acquiring all the Italian pylons and more than 70% of the French infrastructure for $2 billion.  That is nearly 10,000 sites in both countries.

Iliad and Cellnex will be partners in the management and development of Iliad Tower Co for the French business. This service contract includes a construction program for 4,500 custom-built sites.

Iliad's Chief Executive Officer, Thomas Reynaud, explains that "this operation is part of an industrial logic that accelerates the deployment of 4G and 5G networks and increases Iliad's investment capacity. It will enable the efficient deployment of tomorrow's infrastructures for the benefit of all operators and also aims to better meet the challenges of territorial coverage".

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Source : Le Monde Informatique