By Stuart Thomson
Altice France has acquired 100 per cent control service provider Coriolis Télécom in its latest move to consolidate smaller mobile-centric players in the French market.
Altice will initially pay €298 million(US$349.4million), with a delayed additional payment of €117 million, for the operator.
The latest acquisition follows that of Afone Participations, owner of a 50 per cent stake in mobile brand RégioMobile, earlier this year. Part of the rationale of that acquisition, which added 770,000 customers to SFR’s base, was to build a relationship with RégioMobile’s joint owner, the retail giant E Leclerc.
Coriolis, founded over 30 years ago by entrepreneur Pierre Bontemps, provides mobile and fixed-line services to over 500,000 subscribers in small and medium-sized towns across France, along with about 30,000 businesses.
The group also operates a customer service unit that is open to third-party clients, Coriolis Service, with four call centres in France and abroad.
Altice France said it was integrating the existing expertise, partnerships, established distribution network and client base of Coriolis, along with its customer service capabilities, which it said was very complementary to those of SFR and its Intelcia unit.
“Coriolis is a great company, growing strongly, built on a customer proposition that is very complementary to that of SFR. We are keen to bring the significant experience and expertise of the whole Coriolis team to Altice France, and to work together to further improve the services we bring to our customers and fully realise the excellent growth prospects of Coriolis. We are very proud to have Pierre Bontemps, founder of Coriolis, pursue this impressive entrepreneurial adventure with us,” said CEO of Altice France, Grégory Rabuel.
