Eurobites: Xavier Niel bids €3.1 billion to take Iliad private

Also in today’s EMEA regional round-up: Proximus earnings slip in Q2; Sparkle teams up with Google on subsea links; Orange sets targets.Shares in French operator Iliad soared by as much as 62% on the Paris exchange on Friday morning in response to billionaire owner Xavier Niel’s €3.1 billion bid – equivalent to €182 per share – to take his company private. As Bloomberg reports (paywall applies), Niel was concerned about the recent drop in value of Iliad’s