Boston, MA 03/17/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Altice SA (AMS:ATC)’s billionaire chairman, Patrick Drahi, is seeking to acquire SFR and merging it with Numericable SA, if talks turn successfully into a deal.
Drahi is in talks with SFR owner Vivendi SA (EPA:VIV) which may potentially lead to a deal in the coming weeks. The newly formed company will draw analysis from one day after executives in France’s Socialist government criticized its financial profile, network investments, implications for jobs and tax status of Drahi’s personal assets which are estimated at $6.9 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index.
The SFR deal would a more prominent deal for Drahi who had to outdo Martin Bouygues, successor to the industrial group whose challenger bid was backed by billionaire Xavier Niel and many French politicians, in order to gain control of SFR.
Executive In Talks
Drahi and the Chief Executive Officer of SFR, Eric Denoyer will be holding a press briefing in Paris today whereby they intend to discuss the merger deal with SFR. As informed by an analyst at Kepler Cheuvreux in Paris, Conor O’Shea, Numericable has been lulling on the SFR deal for almost a year although Bouygues has been involved for only a couple of weeks. Conor further said that Drahi did not have many opportunities for unification in France if he missed this deal.
Drahi Versus French Politicians
Drahi, the Moroccan born entrepreneur, is not among the favorites of French politicians who have been unsettled at the pace at which he is expanding his presence in the market. From his first cable venture, which he had founded 20 years ago, he has come a long way buying and selling cable companies and in the process establishing Numericable, alongside buyout firm Cinven Group Ltd. Carlyle Group LP (NASDAQ:CG) invested seven years ago in Numericable which has now become the largest cable provide in the country. In a letter to the French ministers, Drahi has promised job to create job opportunities in France.
