Drahi is the president of Altice Europe, a publicly traded telecommunications business with more than 30 million customers. The Amsterdam-based company had revenue of 14.2 billion euros ($16.8 billion) in 2018. Its New York-based subsidiary, Altice U.S.A., became a publicly traded company following a spin-off in 2018.
Patrick Drahi's net worth of $12.6B can buy ...
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The majority of Drahi's fortune is derived from Altice, a group of two publicly traded cable TV companies. He controls the companies through his closely held vehicle Next LP, which is based in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a U.K. crown dependency.
Altice Europe NV has a dual-class structure, and its "A" and "B" shares are traded separately on Euronext Amsterdam. Drahi owns 36% of the "A" shares and 84% of the "B" shares, according to a Aug. 6, 2019 filing with the Dutch financial market regulator. Altice has more than 30 million customers, according to its website.
The spin-off of Altice U.S.A from the European business was completed on May 22, 2018. Drahi owns about 15% of the Altice U.S.A's "A" shares and almost all of its non-trading "B" shares, according to an analysis of the 2019 proxy statement and a May 8, 2019 Form 4 filing. Shares held by CVC 3, an entity owned by Altice Europe, are excluded to avoid double counting.
The billionaire acquired Sotheby's in 2019 and the auction house is included here based on the equity value implied by the transaction. Debt associated with the deal is recorded as a separate liability.
Drahi declined to comment on his net worth calculation.
Patrick Drahi was born on Aug. 20, 1963, in Casablanca, Morocco. When he was 15 years old, he moved with his math teacher parents to southern France. A naturally gifted math student, he graduated from France's selective engineering school, Ecole Polytechnique, then went on to earn a post-graduate degree in optics and electronics from Ecole Nationale Superieure de Telecommunications de Paris in 1986.
Drahi's first job after graduating was as head of international marketing for a Dutch satellite and cable company, Philips Group. His dream as a young student was to one day become CEO of a global company. While at Philips, he realized that the dream could take more than 30 years to materialize if he continued along that career path. So he left the company in 1993, and with the help of a friend, Pascal Orhan, set up CMA, a consulting firm specializing in telecommunications and media. While doing so, he also founded two French cable companies, Sud Cable Services and Mediareseaux.
By 2002, he'd sold both the cable companies and decided to start his own investment holding group, which he called Altice. Focused on cable, telecom and internet assets, Drahi acquired stakes in companies from Belgium to Mauritius, including Israeli cable TV provider, Hot Telecommunication System, Portuguese cable company, Cabovisao, and Odo, the Dominican Republic's second-largest mobile operator. Along with private equity groups, Carlyle and Cinven, he helped create France's largest cable operator, Numbericable, which was listed in Paris in November 2013.
Altice raised more than $1.8 billion in an initial public offering on the Amsterdam stock exchange in January 2014. In an interview with Bloomberg Television, Drahi said the aim of the offering was to boost Altice's recognition globally, as it seeks more acquisitions.
Altice USA, a spin-off of the European business, began trading publicly in New York in 2017.
In June 2019, it was announced that Drahi had agreed to buy Sotheby's in a deal that implied an enterprise value of about $3.7 billion for the publicly traded auction house.
The billionaire, who has both French and Israeli citizenship, is married with four children and lives in Geneva, Switzerland.