BRUSSELS: After an acquisition binge that made his company a major player in the U.S. and Europe, French mogul Patrick Drahi is doing something he usually doesn’t: selling assets.
Mr. Drahi’s telecommunications group, Altice NV, said Thursday it would sell its Belgium and Luxembourg business to Telenet Group BVBA, the Belgian unit of U.S. cable magnate John Malone’s Liberty Global PLC, in a transaction that values the assets at EUR400 million ($417 million).
Altice says it wants to have the most, or second-most customers, in each of the countries it operates. In 2015, the company lost out to Liberty Global PLC in the EUR1.3 billion bidding war for Base, Belgium’s third-biggest mobile operator, leaving it with no clear path into the top two in the country.
Thursday’s deal allows Altice to focus more time and resources on its push in the U.S., where it became the No. 4 cable operator in June after merging regional operator Suddenlink with New York-based Cablevision.
In December, the company said it was considering an initial public offering of a minority interest in its U.S. operation to raise money to expand. Increasing equity would also ease pressure on a company that has around EUR50 billion in long-term debt.
Mr. Drahi, who has cited Mr. Malone as an influence, acquired his Belgium and Luxembourg assets in 2003 for EUR82 million as part of a shopping spree in which he also bought cable operators in France and Israel. The business, which Mr. Drahi rebranded SFR Belgium in recent months, reported 2015 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of EUR51 million, on revenue of EUR75 million.
