The bidding pool has narrowed in the final stages of the sale process for a 50.1% stake in Altice’s French fibre business XpFibre, according to six sources familiar with the deal.

A consortium made up of Vauban Infrastructure Partners and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC is one of the shortlisted parties expected to submit a binding offer by the end of this week, the sources said.

Vauban, which is being advised by Nomura, has an existing joint venture with GIC – its French fibre business Vauban Infra Fibre, which is also backed by Credit Agricole Assurances.

A source previously told this news service that Vauban was bidding for XpFibre potentially to combine it with Vauban Infra Fibre.

Canadian infrastructure investor Brookfield is the other party expected to make a final offer, three sources said. The manager, which has previously invested in French fibre, notably via its ownership of TDF, joined the process at a later stage, sources said, but it is now one of the most motivated to acquire Altice’s holding, one of the sources added.

Infrastructure investors KKR, DigitalBridge and CPPIB were shortlisted into the second phase, but are no longer expected to make an offer, sources said.

Altice, which is advised by BNP Paribas and Lazard, also collected initial bids from GIP and Ardian, but they did not progress to the second round, this news service previously reported.

XpFibre is one of France’s largest fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network operators with more than seven million connections. Altice’s management said in an investor presentation last year that XpFibre was projected to generate EBITDA of more than EUR 400m during 2025.

In 2024, initial plans to sell the business ultimately broke down after the bidders’ offers valued XpFibre at EUR 6bn to EUR 7bn including debt, lower than the expectations of Altice owner Patrick Drahi.

In the current process, non-binding offers gave the company an enterprise value of between EUR 7.8bn-EUR 8.4bn, this news service previously reported.

The final round of the sale takes place as Altice is separately in talks, also ending on 5 June, to sell its French telecoms operator SFR, which is a major customer of XpFibre, to a consortium of rival operators Bouygues Telecom, Orange, and Iliad-Free, as per a local media report.

Brookfield, Vauban, GIC, BNP Paribas, CPPIB, DigitalBridge and KKR declined to comment. XpFibre, Altice, Lazard and Nomura did not respond to requests for comment.