Vodafone Group PLC (LSE:VOD) has attracted the interests of French billionaire businessman, Xavier Niel, who has swooped to take a 2.5% stake in the telecoms giant through his investment vehicle, Atlas Investissement.
Niel has followed his compatriot and fellow billionaire, Patrick Drahi, by taking an interest in the UK-listed telecoms sector. Drahi purchased an 18% stake in BT Group PLC (LSE:BT.A) earlier this year.
Niel owns telecoms provider Iliad and is a long-term investor in the telecoms sector across several European and African markets.
He has investments in nine countries in Europe with nearly 50mln active subscribers combined and more than €10bn of revenues.
Atlas said on Wednesday that it had identified Vodafone "as an attractive investment opportunity, as per the quality of its assets portfolio and the solid underlying trends in the global telecommunications sector."
"Atlas Investissement is supportive of Vodafone's publicly-stated intention to pursue consolidation opportunities in selected geographies, as well as its efforts in infrastructure separation," it said in a statement.
"Atlas Investissement's view is that there are opportunities to accelerate both the streamlining of Vodafone's footprint and the separation of its infrastructure assets, further reduce costs, improve profitability, accelerate broadband development in Germany and other geographies and enhance focus on innovation," the company added.
The move could put pressure on Vodafone boss Nick Read to test Europe's appetite for telecom takeovers after saying he believed competition regulators had eased their opposition to such deals.
The Vodafone CEO created expectations by saying he was pursuing mergers with rivals in multiple European markets, prospects that have not yet materialised.
Vodafone shares were up 2.4% at 108.76p in afternoon trade on Wednesday.