Carphone Warehouse Group, UK’s independent mobile phone retailer, and entrepreneur Richard Branson’s Virgin Group have agreed to sell Virgin Mobile France, to Numericable for an enterprise value of €325m.
Virgin Mobile is France’s largest mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) with 1.5 million customers.
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For the year to 31 March, the group’s profit fell to £1m from £7m while revenues decreased from £385m to £346m.
Carphone, which owns 46% of Virgin Mobile France’s holding company, Omer Telecom, entered into an exclusivity agreement with Numericable have signed a legally binding sale and purchase agreement
Meanwhile, Carphone is seeking shareholder approval for its £3.7bn merger with Dixons.
According to sources, the proceeds from Virgin sale process of around £100m were already factored into Carphone’s financials when brokering the tie-up.
This deal comes just two months after Numericable agreed a £14bn acquisition of mobile operator SFR from French conglomerate Vivendi following a protracted and bitter bid battle with rival Bouygues.
Carphone is a mobile phones and services retailing company. The company offers various products and services to its clients including mobile handsets, tablets, connected devices, quad-play package comprising mobile, fixed line, broadband and TV services, smartphones and other mobile handsets.
