Numericable, Bouygues table competing bids for French mobile operator SFR

French cable company Numericable and French conglomerate Bouygues SA have both tabled binding takeover offers for mobile operator SFR telecommunications, setting up a bidding war for the unit owned by media giant Vivendi.

Without releasing details of the bids, Vivendi said that it has received two binding offers for a controlling stake in its SFR subsidiary from Altice, Numericable's parent company, and by the Bouygues group.

''Vivendi's Supervisory Board will now examine these offers. It will consider all options available regarding the future of its subsidiary and the group, in the best interests of employees and shareholders,'' the Paris-based company said in a statement.

According to a few media reports, Numericable, which is 40-per cent owned by Altice, the Luxembourg-based investment vehicle founded by French cable king Patrick Drahi, has offered to pay around €11 billion.

Under the deal, Altice would own 68 per cent of the combined company, while Vivendi would hold 32 per cent.

Bouygues is said to have tabled a €10.5-billion bid, with Bouygues ending up with 49 per cent of the new company, Vivendi with 46 per cent, and JCDecaux SA, a minority shareholder in Bouygues Telecom, with 5 per cent.

Paris-based SFR provides services for mobile phone, land-line, internet, IP television and mobile internet to more than 21 million customers.

It is the second-largest mobile operators in France by subscribers after Orange SA, while Bouygues Telecom is the third-largest.

SFR was earlier a joint venture between Vivendi and Vodafone, but in 2011 Vodafone sold its entire stake to the French conglomerate (See: Vivendi, Vodafone in talks over SFR stake sale).

Numericable operates a high speed cable network covering close to 10 million households, providing high definition television, video on demand, high speed internet and telephony services.

It is the first operator in France to have deployed its own fibre network in France, which covers over 8 million households.

The European monopoly regulator will closely scrutinize a Bouygues-SFR merger, since French mobile market would be left with the top two mobile operators having a virtual stranglehold leaving the fourth-largest operator Free at the mercy of the top two.