Bouygues has increased its bid for a controlling stake in Vivendi’s SFR, even though the latter is currently locked into exclusive talks with rival bidder Altice over control of France’s second-largest mobile operator.

In its desperation to disrupt the Vivendi-Altice talks, which are one week into the exclusive three-week period, Bougyes has upped its offer to €13.15 billion in cash and a 21.5 per cent stake for Vivendi in the merged entity of SFR-Bouygues.

Vivendi confirmed it had received the new offer from Bouygues but added: “It should be kept in mind that the Vivendi supervisory board decided on March 14th to enter into exclusive negotiations with Altice for a period of three weeks”. Altice, which owns French cable operator Numericable, has offered €11.75 billion for the SFR stake plus a 32 per cent stake in the combined Altice-SFR entity when it is floated.

Bouygues’s previous offer was €11.3 billion and a 43-per-cent stake in the combined stake.  While the cash component has increased, Bouygues has reduced Vivendi’s potential stake in the combined entity drastically.

And Bouygues’s original offer was even lower at €10.5 billion, which means the cash element has increased 25 per cent in the space of two weeks. However, the original stake on offer in the combined entity was 46 per cent, a figure which has shrunk considerably.

And the latest offer from Bouygues has political support from from state-controlled Caisse des Depots et Consignations (CDC), as well as the Pinault family, which controls JCDecaux Holding, an existing Bouygues Telecom shareholder.

CDC will invest €300 million in cash and take a stake of about three per cent in the combined Bouygues-SFR entity, according to Bloomberg. Bouygues would own 67 per cent. Bouygues’s offer has also garnered political support from the government with favourable comments from industry minister Arnaud Montebourg.