Six years after it bought Portugal Telecom, Altice Europe, a group controlled by French-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi, is preparing to sell what is still the largest Portuguese telecom operator today. The process is still at a very early stage, but Expresso confirmed through several sources familiar with the business that Altice had already commissioned an international investment bank to test the sale of what was once the most valuable company on the Portuguese stock exchange.
Patrick Drahi is under pressure due to still very high debt and has grown again so the businessman can pull Altice Europa off the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. With the argument that the group needs to focus on a long-term strategy, taking advantage of the low interest rate path, Drahi decided to take a step forward and regain 100% control of Altice Europe – the company that owns the French SFR, which was bought in 2014 for € 17 billion. And the PT, which cost it 5.5 billion euros. Bold, completed at the start of 2021, cost him nearly 3 billion euros.
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