By Javi West Larrañaga and Gianluca Lo Nostro

Oct 16 (Reuters) - French telecoms group Orange

has not submitted an improved 4.8-billion-euro

($5.6-billion) offer for the 50% stake it does not own in

Spanish operator MasOrange, Orange said on Thursday, dismissing

a report by news website El Confidencial.

El Confidencial said on Thursday that Orange was raising its

offer for the stake currently held by private equity funds KKR

, Cinven and Providence by 800 million euros.

That would be a 20% increase from the 4 billion euros

offered in July. The stake is valued at 10 billion euros

including debt, El Confidencial said.

ORANGE ALSO PURSUING DEAL IN FRANCE

"Following the article published today in El Confidencial,

the Orange group formally denies having submitted a 4.8 billion

euro offer for the acquisition of the remaining 50% capital in

MasOrange that it does not already own," the company said in a

statement to Reuters.

Cinven and Providence declined to comment. KKR did not

immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last year, Orange's Spanish unit - of which it had full

ownership - merged with rival MasMovil, the latter owned by the

three funds.

The resulting joint venture became Spain's biggest mobile

operator serving more than 30 million mobile customers.

Orange is one of the European telecoms firms seeking to

shake up a fragmented sector through mergers and acquisitions.

The French company has submitted a 17-billion-euro bid for

rival SFR jointly with peers Bouygues and Iliad.

That offer was rejected by SFR's parent Altice France, but

the three carriers said on Wednesday they stood by it.

Orange, which put forward less than a third of the 17

billion euros offered for SFR, could have enough capital for

both transactions in France and Spain, a source with knowledge

of the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.