Patrick Drahi


Patrick Drahi is a French-Israeli billionaire businessman with French, Portuguese, and Israeli citizenship, living in Switzerland since 1999. He is the founder and controlling shareholder of the European based telecom group Altice, listed on the European Euronext Stock Exchange.

Biography

Drahi was born in Casablanca, to a Jewish family. When he was 15 years old, the family moved to Montpellier, France. He descends from Jews expelled from Portugal by the Portuguese Inquisition. His parents are both math teachers. Drahi has an engineering degree from the École Polytechnique university in Paris.

Business career

In 2013, Drahi founded the international news channel i24news. This channel is based in Israel, and broadcasts in French, Arabic, and English.
Drahi later became the owner of French cable operator Numericable. In 2013, Drahi bought SFR, the second largest mobile phone and internet provider in France, from media conglomerate Vivendi.
Drahi and his group Altice entered the American telecommunications market in 2015 by purchasing a 70 per cent stake in Suddenlink Communications, the seventh-largest cable company in the US. Suddenlink is valued at $9.1 billion.
In 2015, Drahi bought Cablevision from the Dolan family, renaming it Altice USA with its flagship brand Optimum being the fifth-largest cable operator in the USA.
Drahi owns the Israeli cable television company HOT.
As of November 2015, Forbes estimated Drahi's net worth at $10.3 billion. Forbes ranked him as the 60th-richest person in the world, the third-richest person in France. He was ranked as the richest person in Israel, until 2016, when he came in second.
In June 2019, Sotheby's announced it was being acquired by Drahi at a 61% market premium.

Personal life

He is married and lives in Geneva, Switzerland with his wife and four children.