Altice France to gain 530,000 clients through Coriolis buy

Altice France is set to augment its customer base by a further 530,000 users following its acquisition of independent telecoms player Coriolis Telecom.

The France-based operator, part of the recently privatised Altice Europe group owned by Patrick Drahi, said it has entered into an exclusivity agreement to acquire 100% of Coriolis. The smaller player was established 30 years ago by French entrepreneur Pierre Bontemps and offers its services to more than 500,000 private customers and 30,000 businesses.

Coriolis has also developed a customer relationship management division, Coriolis Service, which serves internal and third-party customers via four contact centers in France and abroad. Altice intends to pay €298 million (US$349.7 million) upfront and a deferred amount of €117 million ($137 million). The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed in the first half of 2022.

Grégory Rabuel, president and CEO of Altice France, described Coriolis as "highly complementary" to SFR, the group's fixed and mobile telecoms player in France. Rabuel also noted that the entire Coriolis team, including Bontemps, is set to join Altice France. Rabuel, who is also CEO of SFR, replaced Alain Weill as president and CEO of Altice France in July. The Coriolis acquisition thus marks the first transaction of his tenure, as well as the first acquisition by an Altice Europe unit since the group went private at the start of 2021. In March, Altice France also agreed to sell its 50.01% stake in Hivory, a company that owns about 10,500 French towers used mainly by SFR.

Coriolis is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) and uses the mobile networks of Orange France and SFR to provide services. It seems likely, then, that Orange is about to lose some of its MVNO customers to SFR.

Gobbling up the minnows

The acquisition of Coriolis will see yet another smaller telecoms player swallowed up by one of France's big four telecoms groups, further driving a consolidation trend on the market. For example, last year Bouygues Telecom acquired Euro-Information Telecom (EIT) from Crédit Mutuel. In May 2021, Altice France agreed to buy 50% of RégloMobile through the acquisition of Afone Participations; the other 50% is to be retained by the Leclerc Group.

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Les Echos pointed out that smaller alternative providers have become a target of the larger groups since Bouygues Telecom and Iliad placed an enhanced focus on the enterprise market. In other examples, Iliad acquired Jaguar Networks in January 2019, while Bouygues acquired Keyyo in the same year.

Altice France reported revenue of €5.42 billion ($6.36 billion) for the six months to June 30, 2021.

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— Anne Morris, contributing editor, special to Light Reading