Bouygues Telecom, Iliad's Free and Orange have signed a memorandum of understanding with Altice France for the planned acquisition of SFR, in a deal that values the targeted activities of France's fourth-largest mobile operator at EUR 20.35 billion.

The signature, announced on 7 June, formalises the framework under which the three rival operators intend to take over the debt-laden business from parent Altice France. It follows the launch of exclusive negotiations in mid-April, when the consortium first put the EUR 20.35 billion enterprise value on the assets it wants to acquire.

The MoU is an intermediate step, not a closing. It commits the parties to the structure of the planned transaction while procedural requirements run their course. The next stage is a consultation period with the relevant employee representative bodies, which the parties said would open in what they described as a spirit of "constructive dialogue".

What has been agreed so far

The sequence of events now on the record is narrow but consequential:

• Mid-April: Bouygues Telecom, Free and Orange entered exclusive negotiations with Altice France over the acquisition of SFR, at a valuation of EUR 20.35 billion for the targeted activities.
• 7 June: The four parties signed a memorandum of understanding covering the planned acquisition.
• Next: A consultation opens with the relevant employee representative bodies, framed by the parties as a "constructive dialogue".

The MoU converts April's exclusivity into a documented agreement on the planned deal's terms. It does not, by itself, transfer any assets. Employee consultation under French corporate procedure must run before the transaction can advance toward completion.

Why the value matters

The EUR 20.35 billion figure attached to the targeted activities sets the reference price for what would be one of the largest restructuring transactions in the French telecoms market in years. SFR, owned by Altice France, has laboured under a heavy debt load, and the consortium approach allows three listed competitors to acquire the business jointly rather than bid against one another.

For Orange, the market leader, and for Bouygues Telecom and Free, the deal offers a route to consolidate a market that has seen sustained price competition since Free's entry as a mobile operator more than a decade ago. The structure of any split of SFR's assets between the three buyers, and how the EUR 20.35 billion valuation maps onto the activities each party would take, will be defined in the transaction documents that follow the consultation phase.

What comes next

The immediate milestone is procedural: the employee representative consultation, which French practice requires for a transaction of this nature. Only after that process concludes can the parties move to definitive agreements and the regulatory review that any consolidation of this scale in France would trigger.

The parties have not, in the announcement, set a closing date. The deal's momentum now rests on the consultation opening as planned and on the consortium converting the MoU into binding documentation on the EUR 20.35 billion valuation agreed in April.