French operator Bouygues Telecom has received the green light from the country’s competition watchdog for the proposed acquisition of MVNO Euro Information Telecom (EIT). The approval of the deal was granted after Bouygues made commitments to remove regulatory concerns over the impact of the deal on the wholesale market. These concessions are linked to EIT’s services as an aggregator, consisting in the wholesale supply of communication time to virtual operators marketing their offers to businesses. This activity, based on EIT’s partnerships with SFR, Orange and Bouygues Telecom, will have to be maintained with a wholesale product equivalent to what EIT provided prior to its planned acquisition.
In the retail market, EIT operates under five consumer-facing brands (Auchan Telecom, Cdiscount Mobile, CIC Mobile, Credit Mutuel Mobile and NRJ Mobile). In addition to its mobile plans, it has been reselling a fixed broadband bundle including voice calls and TV since 2018. For over three years, it has also been targeting the B2B market segment, with services for ‘Pros’, SMEs, large businesses and the public sector. Its customer base passed the 2 million mark in December 2019, making EIT the largest MVNO in France alongside La Post Mobile, which counted around 1.7 million mobile subscriptions as of June.
Bouygues Telecom said that the acquisition price for 100 percent of EIT’s capital will be made up of EUR 530 million payable at the closing of the transaction, and an additional sum amounting to EUR 140-325 million, dependent on the achievement of specific business performance targets over several years. The deal includes a distribution partnership covering 4,200 branches of Credit Mutuel’s banking group.
