Vivendi, a French Conglomerate, announced that it was in restricted discussions with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) telecom operator Etisalat to sell 53 percent stake in Morocco’s operator Maroc Telecom.
The French company said that if the deal is approved, the sale to the Emirates Telecommunications Corp would fetch USD 5.5 billion cash in total, which includes the 2012 USD 408.7million dividend.
This sale is considered to be part of a bigger strategy by Vivendi to sell-off its telecom holdings to concentrate better on media activities, dominated by its Universal Music unit which is the world’s biggest music group. The two are making plans to close the transaction before the end of the year.
A week earlier the Financial Times reported that Vivendi had abandoned an USD 8.5 billion offer by Japan’s SoftBank for Universal Music.