Patrick Drahi sold his “telco” belgian John Malone – The Echoes

This is a small transaction at the level of Altice, the empire of Patrick Drahi, but it is full of symbols. The business man is going to sell its subsidiary, Belgian and Luxembourg Telenet, assets of Liberty Global. To be clear, Patrick Drahi yield LICO Belgium to John Malone, the american giant of the cable, which he regularly presents as his model. The operation is done on the basis of an enterprise value of 400 million euros, or 6.5 times the adjusted Ebitda of SFR, Belgium. Altice, which acquired the operator in 2003 to 82 million euros, was valued around $ 500 million, at the time of its sale. The seller account invoice the buyer for various technical services, technology or use of the trademark SFR.

Although known to be a buyer compulsive disorder (Altice totals $ 50 billion in debt today), Patrick Drahi sells, on the other hand, very rarely active. Recently, in France, he ceded a good part of its newspapers, but this is the first time that he separated from a telecom operator since the creation of Altice in 2001. If it sells today, it is because he has not managed to reach a critical size in Belgium and Luxembourg. He tried to buy back Basis, the third belgian operator, but it is precisely Telenet, which had, in February last.

The two men know each other well

This is not the first time that Patrick Drahi and John Malone do business together. The two men know each other well and appreciate. Patrick Drahi is fascinated by John Malone in which he reproduces the model of development to highly leveraged, through complex financial arrangements. And Malone said to Consider that he is ” a genius “. At the end of the 90′s, the second had sold the first of its 5% stake in its cable operator Mediaréseaux, against shares of UPC. Patrick Drahi was then taken on the responsibility of activities in Southern Europe to UPC. In 2000, it had sold its interest in UPC, and created Altice.

last year, both were coveted Time Warner Cable, won once again by John Malone. In reality, Patrick Drahi has not filed an offer for the number two cable in the United States, claiming to be a ” not ready ” in the face of an acquisition that would have been huge. “I don’t have ‘bidé’, I have a time limit.I have the time… “, said the one who worked on the folder LICO for four, before getting the offer.

Fabienne Schmitt