In the end it is Vivendi that will choose whether it wants either bid or prefers to float SFR.
On March 5th Bouygues and Numericable, a cable operator, both made offers for SFR.
On October 2nd Credit Suisse said it would pump a further SFr 2 billion ($1.35 billion) into Winterthur, after injecting SFr1.7 billion into its shaky insurance subsidiary in June.
SFR, a big mobile-telecoms operator, is being bought by Altice, a Luxembourg-based holding, and Lafarge will soon be run from Holcim's Swiss base.
But it is selling France's second-biggest domestic operator, SFR, to a cable company.As for Mr Niel himself, he has done his personal reputation no harm.
Many in the telecoms industry asked this after Vodafone, the world's biggest mobile operator, announced on April 4th that it would sell its 44% in SFR, the number two wireless carrier in France, for nearly €8 billion ($11 billion).
One of the merits of the SFR is that "we really can build one," says Robert Hill of America's Argonne National Laboratories.
Earlier in 2014 SFR, France's second-biggest mobile operator, merged with Numericable, a cable group.
Vivendi made it clear some time ago that it wanted to be rid of SFR in order to concentrate on content.
It will sell its 50% stake in Vizzavi, a European Internet portal, to Vodafone, its joint-venture partner, for euro143m ($142m) and a clutch of publishing interests to a French publisher, Socpresse, for euro330m.Vodafone was also reported to be close to making an offer for SFR, a French mobile-phone company controlled by cash-strapped Vivendi.
But because SFR and Bouygues Telecom serve only France, and Numericable has little revenue from abroad, in this case the national competition authority would decide.
