Altice to group all operations under a single brand by mid-2018
PARIS (Reuters) - Telecoms and cable holding company Altice will group all its operations under its current name by mid-2018, including its French unit SFR Group, which has lost customers and suffered from poor brand perception lately. The holding company, founded by Franco-Israeli tycoon Patrick Drahi, has swiftly become a major cable and telecoms operator in the United States and France over the last three years through acquisitions that brought its total net debt to 50.7 billion euros ($57 billion) by the end of March. Drahi was also set to present more details of the global rebranding effort at a news conference on Tuesday. Telecoms sub-brands in France, Portugal and Israel, as well as its recently-acquired online video advertising marketplace Teads, will keep their current name, according to a company statement. Altice, which is planning an initial public offering (IPO) of its U.S. activities, is banking on the convergence between content providers and telecommunications operators to increase margins and help it compete better against newcomers such as Netflix and Amazon. (Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain; Editing by Jean-Michel Belot and Sudip Kar-Gupta)
