Vivendi then made an offer and found funding

The current passes more between Vivendi and Zain. The French group announced yesterday have interrupted his discussions with the telecom operator based in the Kuwait to buy a majority interest in its activities of mobile telephony in Africa. Vivendi was negotiating for several weeks with Zain hoping to resume all or part of the 40 million mobile subscribers in the Kuwaiti in some 15 African countries. He had, according to our information, bid a not engaging in this sense ("Les Echos" from July 9). But it has to be rejected.

"Vivendi has applied this potential investment in emerging markets its normal criteria of profitability and financial discipline", merely to indicate the French group yesterday in a press release. The iron arm was intense between the two parties: If Vivendi had on this redemption to find new relays for growth, it was decided to not overpay. For its part, Zain hoped a nice bonus, not hesitant step to repeat publicly that he had invested $ 12 billion in Africa since the Celtel operator in 2005 and many purchasers had approached him.

According to a source close to Vivendi, it is Zain who approached the French. Vivendi then made an offer and found funding. His project was designed to take total control of the activities of Zain Africa in two times. The first step was to hold 65 of the capital of subsidiaries. According to the Kuwaiti "Al-qabas" newspaper, the offer of Vivendi, rejected by Zain, would be high at $ 10.5 billion for 65 of the assets of Zain Africa.

But, according to several banking sources, the failure of the negotiations would be ultimately less on price than on strategic differences with Zain. "There is real tensions within the Kuwaiti operator, says banker." If some shareholders of Zain are vendors, Vivendi realized that this was not necessarily the case with the management.

Relief

The end of the negotiations, in any case, been greeted with relief at the Paris stock exchange. The Vivendi action won 4.04 to 18.16 euros, recording one of the largest increases of the CAC 40. If analysts saw the Vivendi will look for growth in Africa instead of a good eye, they worried on the other hand the impact of such a takeover. Last week, Vivendi had said that it intended to maintain its rating to "BBB" by Standard & Poor's and its dividend. The fear of a capital increase in mass to finance the acquisition of Zain weighed on the title.

For its part, the Kuwaiti operator explained yesterday that he continued "its strategic review which could lead to the sale of the activities of Zain in Africa with the exception of the Morocco and the Sudan".According to him, "several players have already expressed interest.The Indian Reliance is potential candidate, while his counterpart Barthi seeks to buy back the South African MTN. France Telecom reiterated yesterday will not be interested in a takeover of Zain's African operations all. The Kuwaiti operator may consider not to sell its African activities in a single block, but country by country. In this case, several candidates such as France Telecom and Vodafone might be on the ranks. Already present in the telecoms in Africa through its subsidiary Morocco Telecom, Vivendi could also be in the running. Group chaired by Jean-Bernard Levy, Zain file is therefore perhaps not completely closed.