Billionaire Drahi Faces French Scrutiny in SFR Bid

The dark horse in a three-billionaire race to win France’s second-biggest phone company amassed his fortune largely away from the public eye, his photo appearing in a newspaper for the first time only in 2009. Patrick Drahi will have to get used to a lot more attention.

The Altice SA chairman, 50, is on his way to buying SFR and merging it with Numericable SA, the cable provider he controls, if talks with SFR owner Vivendi SA result in a deal in the coming weeks. The new company will draw scrutiny from day one after officials in France’s Socialist government lambasted its financial profile, implications for jobs, network investments and prices -- as well as the tax status of Drahi’s own assets, estimated at $6.9 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.