Every cable cowboy has to face the sheriff sometime. Franco-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi, a protege of boot-wearing, ranch-owning industry legend John Malone, knows it. After a bruising 2017, where Drahi’s trigger hand was shaken by disappointing results and a battering of his company Altice’s stock price, he can expect more run-ins with France’s political powers. Despite a racy expansion in the US, France remains Altice’s biggest source of revenue — and its biggest problem. Drahi has duelled with his country’s ruling class before, much like Malone, who in the heyday of cable giant TCI fended off accusations of mafia-like monopoly tactics from Al Gore — as well as Darth Vader slurs. While building his empire, Drahi gobbled up cable businesses across France and frustrated suppliers, customers and staff with subsequent cost cuts, to the annoyance of consumer watchdogs and local politicians. Still, by 2006 he’d clambered to the top of France’s cable mountain, buying assets from Ma...
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