French telecom Iliad confirmed reports this week that it has made a $15 Billion offer to take a 56.6% stake in T-Mobile US (full details here). The move comes as the Telecom industry has been shaken up in France and around the world. In the last 12 months, here are the following moves that have happened:
- Numericable acquires SFR
- Numericable acquires Virgin Mobile
- Zayo Group acquired Neo Telecom
- Maroc Telecom sold by Vivendi to Etisalet
- Softbank (Japan) merged with Sprint (US)
This past week, Softbank announced that previous plans for Deutsche Telecom to cede T-Mobile US to Sprint (which would subsequently become Softbank) had been delayed, sparking questions about potential counter offers.
Iliad & Xavier Niel are no stranger to foreign markets – Niel also operates Golan Telecom in Israel, and has continued to make waves in the French Telecom market as he delivered the first Triple Play service in the early 2000s, and subsequently slashed mobile prices with the launch of Free Mobile in 2012.
The move is ambitious, and would put Iliad on the global stage that many have pined to see for some time.