A broad pool of investors and strategics is circling the relaunched sale process for Altice’s stake in XpFibre, with first round offers due next month, according to sources.

French fibre-to-the-home operator Altitude Infra, which is backed by UBS Asset Management, Swiss Life Asset Management, InfraRed Capital Partners and Arjun Infrastructure Partners, is among the potential bidders, sources said.

Sources added that Altitude is reaching out to investors to form a consortium to submit an initial offer, ahead of the mid-March deadline.

Sellside banks BNP Paribas and Lazard formally launched the sale with the distribution of information memoranda for Altice’s 50.1% stake in XpFibre earlier this month, sources said.

The stake could also fetch interest from French infrastructure managers Vauban Infrastructure Partners, one source said, while Ardian, which participated in Altice’s previous sale attempt in 2024, remains interested, sources said.

Infrastructure investor Macquarie is another party named by sources as an interested potential bidder for the majority stake.

KKR and GIP remain as contenders in the process after their previous involvement, which saw the two managers submit a second round of non-binding offers before Altice paused the auction, sources said.

La Caisse presented an initial bid in the last sale attempt and is again showing interest in the company, sources added.

XpFibre, which is also owned by OMERS, Allianz, and AXA IM Alts, is one of France’s largest fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network operators with more than seven million connections.

The sale process is running in parallel to sale talks for Altice France’s telecom operator SFR – one of XpFibre’s main customers. A consortium comprising French telecoms groups Bouygues, Iliad and Orange submitted a EUR 17bn offer in October last year, and last month said it could increase its offer after an initial rejection from Altice, according to reports.

One source added that with SFR due to be sold, bidders for XpFibre may question who is going to be the main customer of XpFibre once SFR is sold.

Altice’s management said in an April investor presentation that they expect XpFibre to generate EBITDA of more than EUR 400m during 2025.

A deal could value its equity in the region of EUR 4bn-EUR 4.6bn, a source told this news service last year.

In 2024, sale talks ultimately broke down after the bidders’ offers valued XpFibre at EUR 6bn to EUR 7bn including debt, while Altice founder Patrick Drahi wanted a valuation of around EUR 8bn.

XpFibre completed a EUR 5.8bn debt refinancing last year.

Lazard, Ardian, La Caisse, KKR, GIP and Macquarie declined to comment. XpFibre, Altice, BNP Paribas, Altitude, and Vauban did not respond to requests for comment.