The company’s founder and largest shareholder will try to reassure the group’s creditors. In Portugal, unions will meet with minister João Galamba on August 16.
What went on at Altice to allow an alleged corruption scheme to continue for a number of years, with one of the company’s co-founders as one of the main strategists?
This may be one of the explanations that the main shareholder of the Altice group, Patrick Drahi, will be called upon to give on August 7 and 8, the dates of the presentation of the results of Altice International and Altice France respectively, when he is scheduled to participate in conference calls with the bondholders of these entities.
With the investigations in Portugal resulting in the arrest of two of the defendants, Braga businessman Hernâni Antunes and Altice co-founder Armando Pereira, the case has begun to gain some international attention and questions are being raised about its impact on the company’s business and reputation.
Next month’s conference calls are aimed at “current and potential debt investors” of
Altice International (which aggregates the group’s businesses in Portugal, Israel and the Dominican Republic) and Altice France (whose main asset is operator SFR), to “discuss the results for the second quarter of 2023”.
But the involvement of Drahi, Altice’s “founder and controlling shareholder” who has
built an empire on debt – some $60 billion (or nearly €54 billion at current exchange
rates) split between Altice International, Altice France and Altice USA – is proof that
quarterly accounts should not be the hottest topic of conversation.
Not when there are suspicions of bias in the process of contracting services and products in products at Altice Portugal (but not only), of payment of undue advantages to managers (including the Portuguese Alexandre Fonseca and Luís Alveirinho, according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office) and the sale of company assets at a loss (such as the properties of the former PT).
For now, after the announcement of the suspension of managers and representatives, the freezing of payments to companies involved in the process (known as Operation Picoas) and the opening of internal investigations, there is only silence. To the various questions sent by PÚBLICO on this subject, an official source from the Altice group assured that “many answers will be given on August 7/8”.
According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Altice Portugal will have been damaged by at
least 250 million euros, and the executive president, Ana Figueiredo, has already
assumed that “the facts are obviously worrying” and that it is necessary to work to “recover the reputation” of the company and “turn the page”.
Despite seeing the message from Altice’s chief executive as positive, the president of the STPT union, Jorge Félix, says that workers are “afraid of what might happen, if everything proves to be true”. And also “with some frustration”, because “they thought they were working for the development of the company and after all they were working to enrich people and feed luxuries and ambitions”.
The union leader also lamented the fact that management had never been open to
improving pay conditions when there were “millions leaving the company”.
Other unions want to discuss the Altice situation with the government. This Thursday,
Fectrans (Federation of Transport and Communications Unions) announced that, following the request it made on behalf of Sinttav, SNTCT and STT, the office of the Minister of Infrastructure, João Galamba, has scheduled a meeting for August 16, at 10am, with the Altice case on the agenda.
The unions also asked to meet with Patrick Drahi.
