Altice to keep acquiring as European telecom market consolidates
Altice, the Luxembourg telecom group that is listed in Amsterdam, is looking to make more acquisitions over the next few years, het Financieele Dagblad reported, citing CFO Dennis Okhuijsen. There will be four to five players left in the consolidated European market after the next five to ten years, and Altice wants to be one of them, Okhuijsen said.
While competitors such as Orange and Deutsche Telekom are downsizing, Altice last year bought French operator SFR for EUR 17bn and Portugal Telecom for EUR 7.4bn.
The restructuring of those acquisitions, will finance the company’s success, Okhuijsen says. Patrick Drahi, who owns 60% of the shares, plays a key role. Altice expects providers to drop prices by more than 5-10% and standardizes and streamlines the services on offer. This allows Altice to run businesses more effectively by 30,40 or 50%, Okhuijsen says.
Altice’s primary focus is fixed networks, which allow for a strategic advantage as they are difficult to copy. They have the most value and a stable environment, as few people change provider. When the company enters a country, they prefer to gain all the households in that country, before expanding to mobile, Okhuijsen was cited as saying.
Altice, which also owns 60% of French cable company Numericable, had a turnover of roughly EUR 15bn in 2014, up from tens of millions EUR in 2010, the report said.
Het Financieele Dagblad