"No company will invest under the existing conditions in Israel. There is great disorder and confusion in the existing regulation. This is clearly visible; communications companies in Israel are not investing," Patrick Drahi, who owns Hot Telecommunication Systems Ltd. (TASE: HOT.B1) controlling shareholder Altice, told "Globes."
Asked about Hot's planned fiber-optic investments, Drahi said that Altice was deploying fiber optics everywhere it operates. He made no commitment about Israel, however. His remarks indicated that the matter was too complicated, in view of the uncertainty in the market.
Concerning the possibility of expanding his investments in Israel, he said that he was talking with the heads of the companies in the communications market, but that there was nothing on the agenda at the moment. At the same time, according to the general impression, and without saying so explicitly, his confidants hinted that if an opportunity to expand Altice's investments in Israel arises, with an emphasis on Partner Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: PTNR; TASE: PTNR), he will give it favorable consideration.
In everything he said to reporters and employees, Drahi praised HOT in Israel, citing it as an example for all of his group's companies for the good work it has done in recent years and the prize it won for excellence in management.
Drahi mentioned the dire straits the company had been in, and the disorder and inefficiency that prevailed at Hot when he acquired it. He emphasized this in his speech to tens of thousands of the company's workers, while emphasizing that he was trying to visit Israel whenever he had the chance.
Drahi said several times in the past that he believed that there was no room for more than three players in Israel, or in any other communications market in the world, and he repeated it again on this occasion. HOT Mobile Ltd. signed a hosting agreement for Golan Telecom Ltd.'s customers as part of Golan Telecom's efforts to save itself, but Golan Telecom was eventually sold in a tender to Electra Consumer Products (TASE: ELEK). This indicates that had the regulator allowed the companies to merge, Altice would probably have taken steps to increase its investments in Israel.
In his speech on the occasion of rebranding the entire group, Drahi unveiled his vision of the business world and life in general, and called on his employees to take risks, because there is no innovation without risks, and entrepreneurship is based on taking risks. He added that this was what he expected from his managers. He told how he had begun without any money, and how he had succeeded through his first deal in expanding and deploying communications infrastructure in millions of homes in France.
Drahi called on managers and employees to cooperate, saying that the job of managers was to be leaders who create solutions. "Don't make things complicated," he said. "Do everything simply, because excessive complications create bureaucracy, which hampers business."
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on May 25, 2017
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