Vodafone chief executive Chris Gent was quoted as saying on Monday that he saw a 50 percent chance of buying control of French mobile phone operator SFR but the ball was in the court of fellow SFR shareholder Vivendi.

Insight

PMN reiterates its earlier position (see comments on ‘Vodafone casts doubt on SFR acquisition‘) that Gent’s continuing comments in the press can be attributed in no small part to gamesmanship. Vodafone is the correct home for SFR. There is a certain logic in Vivendi hanging on to the stake to extract a higher price when market sentiment improves, but this assumes that the French group will have a sufficiently comfortable cash position to make this choice.