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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on October 2, 2015.

AMSTERDAM: Billionaire Patrick Drahi’s Altice NV, the European telecommunications firm buying Cablevision Systems Corp, is raising €1.8 billion (RM8.83 billion) by selling new stock to help finance the takeover of the US cable carrier.

Altice plans to sell as many as 69.99 million A shares and up to 24.83 million vote-rich B shares, in the first stock sale since creating the Dutch holding company to allow Drahi to keep control of his cable empire while using stock to finance acquisitions. The amount raised is equal to as much as 10% of the company’s stock, according to a statement yesterday. Altice also priced US$8.6 billion (RM37.93 billion) of new debt, with an average cost of 7.6%.

The shares fell as much as 7.5% and traded 3.6% lower at €18.06 at 9.23am in Amsterdam. They are down almost 40% since early August, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Altice, Europe’s most acquisitive cable company, agreed last month to buy Cablevision in a US$17.7 billion deal to create the fourth-largest US cable provider. Among potential takeover targets for Drahi in Europe is Dutch carrier Royal KPN NV, people familiar with the matter said. Chief executive officer Dexter Goei said in an interview last week that Altice would take a break from its buying binge to focus on cutting costs and integrating cable systems.

Drahi, whose cable and phone empire stretches from Israel to France and the Caribbean, used Altice to make takeover bids for French carrier SFR and Portugal’s largest phone company. Altice is also the controlling shareholder of Numericable-SFR SAS, the French cable and wireless company that Drahi used to make a failed bid for Bouygues Telecom.

JPMorgan Chase & Co is arranging the stock sale. — Bloomberg

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