France Telecom SA’s phone directories unit, Pages Jaunes, said Tuesday it will go ahead with one of the largest initial public offerings seen in Paris in two years despite difficult market conditions.
The plan to float Pages Jaunes – “Yellow Pages” in French – values the company at between 3.6 billion euros and 4.2 billion euros ($4.4 billion to $5.1 billion).
“I still believe the underlying value of Pages Jaunes is largely over 4 billion euros,” said Michel Combes, France Telecom’s CFO and chairman of the Pages Jaunes supervisory board.