Patrick Drahi breaks his teeth on Eutelsat
Reuters reported that Patrick Drahi was in discussions with European satellite operator Eutelsat about a possible takeover. A deal that would have seen one of his investment vehicles take direct control of the Paris-listed company. "An offer for Eutelsat, which has a market value of €2.3 billion ($1.96 billion) and is backed by public investor Bpifrance with a 20% stake," according to Reuters. This was rejected by the satellite operator as being too low.
The man recently received regulatory approval to take telecoms group Altice Europe private after its minority shareholders approved his bid to buy the company. In June, he had taken a 12.1% stake in UK telecoms operator BT Group using the newly created Altice UK vehicle. According to unnamed sources, the billionaire had no intention of merging Eutelsat with his telecoms and media assets and would like to keep the French company in a separate holding company.
For its part, incumbent Eutelsat - since 1977 - recently bought nearly 24% of UK rival OneWeb for $550m - the biggest deal since CEO Rodolphe Belmer took office in 2016.
Source : Le Monde Informatique