(Telecompaper) Media and telecom multinational Vivendi has reached an agreement in principle to sell its French mobile and broadband subsidiary, SFR, to Altice, an investment company controlled by Patrick Drahi, Les Echos reports without citing its sources. The newspaper writes that this means that SFR will probably not go public, despite Vivendi's announced plans to list it this summer. Vivendi and Altice aim to reach a firm agreement within a few weeks. The operation values SFR at over EUR 15 billion, less than the valuation used when Vivendi bought out its former partner Vodafone in 2011. The potential agreement would see Altice owning over 50 percent of SFR-Numericable and Vivendi 32 percent. The merger-acquisition agreement would include around EUR 8 billion of debt, or less than four times its gross operating profit. SFR and Numericable would gain EUR 6 billion of synergies.