French billionaire Xavier Niel rose to prominence in the telecom world for his ownership of domestic telco Iliad. He went on to capture the industry’s attention when Iliad sparked a price war in the mobile sector when the telco’s Free Mobile unit launched in January 2012. (Niel employed a similar price-war tactic when Iliad Italia launched in May 2018.)
But these companies only represent the tip of the iceberg.
Indeed, the size and scale of Niel’s empire are often overlooked due to convoluted shareholder structures, the use of myriad holding companies – including NJJ Capital, Atlas Investissement and Iliad itself – and the lack of a unified brand name across markets.
Today we piece it all together to appreciate the bigger picture.