France Télécom is in talks with CDC Equity Capital and Charterhouse Development Capital over a partial sale of Télédiffusion de France (TDF), its transmission tower business, which could value the company at around €2.1bn ($1.9bn).

The talks, which France Télécom has confirmed, represent the company's latest move to reduce its €50bn mountain of debt without necessarily turning to the equity markets. TDF is the largest transmission business in France with over 7,000 installations, and also has operations in Spain, Germany and Poland.