Altice’s Patrick Drahi
Photos: Getty (3)Debt and Scandal Throw Billionaire Drahi’s Empire Into Turmoil
He built his telecoms empire in an era of low interest rates. Now, with soaring debt costs and a corruption case in the corporate suite, the Altice tycoon faces the biggest challenge of his career.
At Goldman Sachs’s gleaming Plumtree Court offices in London on Sept. 6, Patrick Drahi pledged something that would once have been unthinkable: His willingness to put every part of Altice, the telecommunications and media giant he cobbled together over 30 years, up for sale.
“Everything is open... It’s just a question of offer and demand,” the French-Israeli billionaire told about 200 debt investors gathered in a packed auditorium and several more on Zoom, according to an unofficial transcript of the meeting seen by Bloomberg. “All in, man, all in. Plus the Eiffel Tower. Okay?”