French billionaire Patrick Drahi’s most recent potential buyer is another French billionaire who is moving on many fronts to expand his empire
Altice Portugal, part of the Altice group controlled by the French billionaire Patrick Drahi, is reportedly attracting ever more potential buyers. The most recent, according to BNN Bloomberg, is Xavier Niel who controls the French telco group Iliad.
Iliad has opcos in France and Italy under the Free brand and Play in Poland. Niel’s investment vehicle NJJ Capital has just acquired Turkcell’s opco in Ukraine for an undisclosed sum, but Turkcell valued the assets at UAH 15.2 billion (€365 million) in December.
Having failed to acquire Vodafone Italy in 2022, in December Niel made an €11 billion offer to merge Free in Italy with Vodafone’s Italian unit.
Need to sell assets
In comparison Drahi is under pressure to sell assets to pay address Altice group’s debts of $60 billion, amassed when money was cheap to buy assets. He has not been helped by an accounting scandal that erupted in Portugal last summer involving the co-founder of Altice. The investigation continues.
The Portuguese business newspaper, Jornal Economico, reported that three potental buyers had made non-binding offers in December, but that all three are thought to be well below Drahi’s valuation of more than €7 billion valuation.
Subsequently, the Portuguese news paper CincoDias reported Saudi’s stc was one of the three and had offered more than €7 billion for the entire Portuguese business. stc is also on the acquisition trail, having recently acquired a 10% stake in Telefonica group, prompting the Spanish government to counterbalance the Saudi operator’s holding by taking a 10% stake itself.
A Financial Times article said private equity firm Warburg Pincus had linked up with Antonio Horta-Osorio, former chair of Credit Suisse, and bid more than €6 billion.
According to BNN Bloomberg, Drahi has expressed a preference for selling assets to financial houses rather than other operators.