BNP Paribas has led Cinven and Altice One, a Luxembourg-based cable operator, to exclusive talks to buy French cable assets worth more than €500m ($614m) from Vivendi Universal and France Télécom.

The last round of bidding has knocked out Providence Equity Partners, a US private equity firm, according to a source close to the auction. A joint bid from Apax Partners and Soros Private Equity is understood to have been rejected earlier this year.