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Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Bouygues Telecom

The perennial change of ownership favourite and the smallest of the three French cellular operators has just reported Q1 results:
Bouygues Telecom's net profit in the first quarter of 2007 stood at 143 million euros (up 55%) and EBITDA came to 360 million euros, up 18% compared with the first quarter of 2006, when the Neo and Exprima call plans were successfully launched.
This improved profitability was due to growth in sales (up 5%) which outstripped that of the market and lower subscriber acquisition costs.
In addition the operating profit came in at €217m which is a 53% increase y-o-y. Annualising the Q1 EBITDA and using a 8.5x EV/EBITDA valuation metric gives an approximate value of €12.2bn.

Bloomberg is reporting Sawiris owner of Wind in Italy and part owner with Orange of Mobinil in Egypt is considering a bid.

An auction for Bouygues Telecom would certainly add some spice to the quiet summer months: I could almost guarantee that Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica and KPN would also get involved in any auction. However, I don’t think a sale will occur and even if did it would be conducted far away from the public glaze.