2023-09-05 10:38:49
Patrick Drahi, CEO of Altice, in Paris, February 2, 2022. STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP
Patrick Drahi will never have needed so much to speak publicly. A month after his first speech, on August 7 and 8, during two conference calls, the co-founder of the telecoms and media group (SFR, BFM-TV, etc.) is going to meet his investors in London on August 6. September, then the next day in New York, to try to reassure them about the consequences of the arrest, in Portugal, on July 13, for eleven presumed financial crimes, of his historical partner Armando Pereira.
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The tenor of his speech should not have changed. At the beginning of August, Mr. Drahi said to himself “betrayed and deceived”. And if he ensured “take this matter very seriously”, he also minimized its repercussions for the group, and therefore for its shareholders and lenders. Everything would be done, according to him, to deleverage the structure and avoid an uncontrolled skid. Between SFR and international operators (United States, Portugal, Dominican Republic, Israel), the Drahi empire in telecoms is based on 55 billion euros in debt.
Will his words be enough to calm the financiers who have seen the value of their shares and certain bonds in their possession melt away with this corruption affair? For the past few days, several American law firms have been beating the drum on the Internet to encourage the shareholders of Altice USA, the only company of Mr. Drahi still listed on the New York Stock Exchange, to approach them to initiate a collective complaint. (class action) against the telecom operator whose share price has lost 4% since mid-July, when it had already fallen by 60% in one year.
The practice of American lawyers is common and many attempts at such procedures are unsuccessful. But Altice is dealing with several tough firms specializing in this type of procedure, such as Pomerantz LLP, which has battled in the past against giants like Amazon or the tobacco group Altria. Altice USA and Pomerantz did not respond to requests from the Monde.
An operation to be invented after the suspensions of frames
Altice will also have to learn to operate without its co-founder, when the operator is going through a bad commercial patch. Since January 1, 2023, SFR has lost 235,000 mobile subscribers, or just over 1% of its customer base. Mr. Pereira’s management method, based on a policy of cost reduction without qualms and on the centralization of decisions, has largely contributed to the success of the group created with Mr. Drahi in the early 2000s from small local operators.
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