Billionaire Saade’s Wife Takes Charge of Expanding Media Empire
- Shipping clan has spent billions in recent years to diversify
- CMA CGM is poised to control major French TV, radio channels
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France’s billionaire Saade clan has kept business operations under tight family control for more than four decades. The practice is intensifying across the second-generation as scion Rodolphe Saade’s wife takes charge of their rapidly expanding media division.
Veronique Albertini-Saade, 49, will add their biggest-ever media acquisition to her portfolio as head of the family’s communications division. The deal for Altice Media, with a total enterprise value of €1.55 billion ($1.7 billion), is expected to clear regulatory hurdles in coming weeks. It will hand influential French news channel BFM TV and popular radio station RMC to the family that controls the world’s third-largest commercial shipping line, CMA CGM SA.