TDF has found a buyer for its fiber optic networks. According to information from World, the former Télédiffusion de France, a former terrestrial television broadcasting monopoly in France, is on the verge of concluding an agreement with the Dutch fund DIF Capital Partners. The amount of the transaction is around one billion euros. A high price which dampened all the other candidates interested in purchasing this activity, including Orange Concessions, the subsidiary of the leading French telecoms operator. Contacted, TDF did not comment. DIF Capital Partners did not respond to our request.
Launched in 2017, this activity, supposed to provide a new source of income alongside the historic businesses of television broadcasting and services for mobile telecom operators, is doing well. In 2023, it achieved a turnover of 71.3 million euros, an increase of 37%. TDF Fiber claims 735,500 optical fiber sockets distributed across the five public initiative networks entrusted to it by communities (Val-d’Oise, Yvelines, Loir-et-Cher/Indre-et-Loire, Maine-et -Loire and the community of communes of Faucigny Glières, in Haute-Savoie). As of December 2023, 380,300 of these outlets were connected, with a subscriber at the end of the line.
Despite this success, the former public group resolved, reluctantly, to launch the sale of this activity in mid-2023, under pressure from its shareholders, the Canadian investment funds Brookfield and PSP, the Dutch APG, the British insurer Arcus and French insurer Predica. The latter, shareholders since 2015 (except Predica, which arrived in 2016), had tried in 2022 to sell part of TDF’s capital to recover part of their investment. But the tremors on the financial markets at the start of 2023, the hoped-for valuation and dissensions between them got the better of their project.
Closely followed in the telecoms sector
TDF shareholders thus fell back on a sale by apartment, fiber being the easiest activity to sell. Investment funds appreciate this type of infrastructure. DIF Capital Partners, which opened an office in Paris in 2007, has already been present in optical fiber in France as a shareholder in ADTiM, a joint venture which deploys very high speed in Drôme and Ardèche. He sold his stake at the end of 2022.
After this operation, could TDF sell other activities? The sale of the historic television broadcasting activity would be more complex, the State being sensitive to the shareholding of the main broadcaster of TNT and radio in France. After its sale by France Télécom (now Orange) in 2005, TDF has always had a public shareholder in its capital: first, the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, then the Strategic Investment Fund and finally Bpifrance. Since 2016, the tricolor touch has been provided by Predica at 10%. The sale of services to telecom operators, which now represent 58% of TDF’s turnover, would be easier to achieve but the pace of investment in this area has slowed significantly in recent months due to the maturity of the market and the increase in the cost of debt.
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