Xavier Niel’s tentacles extend into Europe. The tentacles of an investor on the prowl.
The “geek” entrepreneur, who launched into the pink minitel 30 years ago, is now the competitor that the bosses don’t want to see. A competitor who, it must be recognized, is starting to show another face.
Under different names, different holding companies, different investment vehicles, the French billionaire has captured numerous shares in telecommunications in Europe. And Belgium did not escape it. We take stock.
Proximus: 6%, why?
Recently, Xavier Niel invested, via the Carraun holding company, in Proximus, and reached 6% of the shares.
“It’s purely opportunistic”, explained specialists in the sector to us. Probably attracted by a stable return and a solid position in a market where telecoms prices remain “expensive”. However, prices could be under pressure in the future, with the arrival of the future operator Digi in the summer of 2024 and the general strengthening of competition. Note that 6% in a company majority owned by the Belgian State leaves little room for maneuver. But the logic of Xavier Niel is perhaps to be understood in the longer term.
gull“I have been attracted to the Belgian market for a long time.”
“I have long been attracted to the Belgian market, whose economy is strong and where a sound regulatory approach has created a dynamic telecommunications sector”, he commented during this participation, in November 2023.
“We have built a pan-European telecommunications group over the last decade by always focusing on providing our customers with the best value for money and relying on high quality mobile and fixed network infrastructure”, he then specified. Could it establish partnerships with other operators present in Belgium? Hard to say. No information points in this direction at the moment. And there is no question, for the moment, of a merger with an actor like Digi, the low-cost telecoms operator which is preparing to arrive in Belgium, both in mobile and fixed lines.
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Elsewhere in Europe?
Xavier Niel is clearly, via several investment structures, in the process of taking shares throughout Europe. France, Belgium, Italy, United Kingdom, Ireland, Switzerland, Poland… The billionaire puts his marbles almost everywhere. In the telecoms brands section, we therefore find it in Free, Iliad, Play, Eir, Tele2, Proximus, Vodafone, Monaco Telecom, Epic… Note that for Vodafone and Proximus, the shares remain low (2.5% and 6%) . For other brands, it is, in the majority of cases, either the largest shareholder or the sole shareholder. He also withdrew his group, Iliad, from the Paris Stock Exchange in 2021, in order to take it back and maintain total control.
He would also be on the verge of accessing the Iberian Peninsula via Portugal and has also announced that he is in the process of spending nearly half a billion dollars to seize the third Ukrainian telecoms operator, Lifecell, until now. there owned by the Turkish group Turcell. An operation that he should carry out with one of his investment vehicles, called NJJ holding. It also announced, in April, that it was on track to acquire Ukraine’s number 1 fixed internet operator, Datagroup-Volia, currently held by the American fund Horizon Capital.
-> Also reread the portrait of Xavier Niel: Pink Minitel, (small) prison box and 2 euro packages: Xavier Niel, the French billionaire who enters Proximus
“He can afford to peck all over Europe”, explains an observer of the sector, who believes that an actor like Deutsche Telekom could not act in this way, with a supranational logic in its sights, whereas Xavier Niel, via his multiple entities and acquisitions, could find his account there. long term, while telecoms stocks are, for the moment, considered undervalued. Clearly, their stock price would not represent what the groups could generate in revenue, nor their importance in our societies.
Classic investors stay awaywhere some insiders invest”, we can still hear. Insiders like Xavier Niel, who would therefore position himself in the long term, sometimes as a “white knight” of healthy competition. It shook up the market in France 25 years ago on fixed internet and almost 15 years ago on mobile; Perhaps now is the time for him to move up a gear.
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Streaming
Beyond purely telecoms aspects, Xavier Niel has also positioned itself as a challenger in everything related to streaming, in a market where there are numerous players and fierce competition. In January of this year, it even launched, in France, a telecoms offer coupled with an ultra-competitive streaming bouquet, at around sixty euros per month. With, among other things, ultra-fast internet via fiber, subscriptions to Netflix, Disney +, Prime Video and part of Canal +, among others. An offer which was enough to arouse jealousy among the Belgian neighbors. Even dissuading French consumers who use illegal IPTV, this pirate offer which has experienced rapid growth in Europe in recent years, from continuing to take this risk.
The “startup”
Finally, Xavier Niel in Belgium is positioning on everything start-up. After co-founding Station F in Paris and Écoles 42, coding training centers mainly spread over around fifty campuses in more than 30 different countries around the world, Xavier Niel sponsored École 19, founded by the entrepreneur Belgian John-Alexander Bogaerts, who is in this vein. Which gives it, in theory, an extraordinary influence on the world of innovation.
David could therefore transform into Goliath.
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