Luxembourg headquartered telecom group Altice N.V., controlled by Patrick Drahi, has agreed to buy US cable TV operator company Cablevision for $17.7 billion, the two companies have confirmed. The share price of Cablevision jumped 16% in after-market trading.
Patrick Drahi, who also holds French nationality, is Israel's wealthiest citizen and his global telecom and media interests include Israeli communications company Hot and TV station i24.
Altice, which has a market cap of €24.6 billion, has been on something of a spending spree this year. Three months ago the company bought a stake in Numerical-SFR for $4.4 billion and offered €10 billion in a failed bid to buy Bouygues Telecom. But Altice did get a foothold in the US market by acquiring Suddenlink, the seventh largest regional cable TV station for $9.1 billion.
Last week, Forbes named Drahi as the wealthiest Israeli for the second successive year, with estimated wealth of NIS 60 billion ($15.5 billion).
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 17, 2015
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