What is it about French tycoons and British phone companies? While Patrick Drahi lays siege to BT, another “French rebel”, Xavier Niel, has begun storming the ramparts of Vodafone, said Jamie Nimmo in The Sunday Times. Niel has built a 2.5% stake worth £750m in the UK mobile phone giant via his Atlas Investissement vehicle.
The founder of the Iliad telecoms empire is something of a celebrity entrepreneur in France, his profile raised by his long-term relationship with the heiress to the LVMH fortune, Delphine Arnault. Niel’s exact plan for Vodafone is anyone’s guess. He has left the market, and the company’s top brass, guessing.
“Brexit was supposed to awaken a latent buccaneering spirit,” said Tom Braithwaite in the Financial Times. “And so it has. For the French.” The Iliad/Vodafone tilt is just one of “a flurry of cross-Channel deals” struck on a single day last week, involving tech, satellite and recycling companies. Is this some kind of “dastardly” French plot? Bankers point instead to the relative decline in valuations and currency. Prepare for a rash of American companies to join the French “at the UK’s bargain bin”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
“Even before sterling got this low, foreign corporate and buyout bidders were taking advantage of relative dollar strength to pounce on London-listed companies,” said Chris Hughes on Bloomberg. Thanks to Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, this “UK is cheap” narrative has “gotten another leg”.
Analysts at Canaccord Genuity recently drew up a list of 100 companies it considers to be targets – including ITV, Next, Greggs, BAE Systems, Flutter and The Week’s publisher, Future, said Ben Marlow in The Daily Telegraph. The most “vulnerable” are the “cheap and cash rich”. The “rock bottom pound” has turned some of our best companies into “sitting ducks”.
-
‘But being a “hot” country does not make you a good country’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Why have homicide rates reportedly plummeted in the last year?Today’s Big Question There could be more to the issue than politics
-
Magazine printables - January 30, 2026Puzzle and Quizzes Magazine printables - January 30, 2026
-
Ryanair/SpaceX: could Musk really buy the airline?Talking Point Irish budget carrier has become embroiled in unlikely feud with the world’s wealthiest man
-
Powell: The Fed’s last hope?Feature Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell fights back against President Trump's claims
-
Taxes: It’s California vs. the billionairesFeature Larry Page and Peter Thiel may take their wealth elsewhere
-
Buffett: The end of a golden era for Berkshire HathawayFeature After 60 years, the Oracle of Omaha retires
-
Is $140,000 the real poverty line?Feature Financial hardship is wearing Americans down, and the break-even point for many families keeps rising
-
Coffee jittersFeature The price of America’s favorite stimulant is soaring—and not just because of tariffs
-
Shein in Paris: has the fashion capital surrendered its soul?Talking Point Despite France’s ‘virtuous rhetoric’, the nation is ‘renting out its soul to Chinese algorithms’
-
The 996 economy: Overtime, Silicon Valley–stylefeature After work, there’s...more work
