Vivendi eyeing Orascom Algeria

French telecom group ,Vivendi may buy Orascom Telecom’s Algerian unit, French daily La Tribune said on Friday.The paper wrote that Mehdi Dazi, member of Vivendi’s board, was in Algiers last Saturday to meet with local businessmen including Issad Rebrab, head of Algerian Cevital group, which owns 3% in Orascom Telecom Algeria.

Cevital may join Vivendi in the bid for the Algerian telecomms operator serving over 14 million mobile customers, the paper added.
The company, which also owns operations in France, Morocco and Brazil, could unite with Cevital to launch a takeover of Orascom’s local subsidiary which serves more than 14 million mobile telephone customers in Algeria and reported revenue of over USD2 billion last year.