US investment fund Carlyle has offered less than EUR 500 million to purchase Gores Group's stake in STB manufacturer Sagemcom, the former subsidiary of French industrial group Safran, Les Echos reports, citing unnamed sources. This is less than the valuation of EUR 500-750 million reported when Gores put the share up for sale at the end of last year. Since then Gores restructured Sagemcom to facilitate a disposal, first by selling the urban road system technology unit to construction group Colas's Aximum subsidiary, then by selling mobile telephony equipment maintenance unit TR2S to Cordon Electronics. The remaining operations are Broadband (STBs, home gateways), Documents (business printers and photocopiers) and Energy & Telecom (utility meters, M2M, medical and climate control). According to the paper, the price is still a sticking point for the sale to Carlyle of the 65.7 percent of Sagemcom Gores still owned as of January 2011. Three years ealier, the latter bought 57.4 percent of Sagem Communications, as it was then called, for EUR 383 million.
