The Saudis are in “leading position” in the race for Altis Portugal. Competitors are reluctant to raise risks
Saudi Telecom Company emerged as the best candidate to buy the owner of Meo, after submitting the highest offer. Altice Portugal will ask the other two interested parties to review their proposals.
Pedro Catarino
Saudi Telecom Company has made the highest bid for Altice Portugal, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the process. The Saudis have an advantage in the race to own Meo, with Altice asking other candidates to improve their proposals.
However, the Warbur Pincus consortium, which also includes Zeno Partners and Antonio Horta-Osório, has already indicated that it has no intention of upping the ante, the same sources say.
The third competitor, Iliad, owned by French billionaire Xavier Niel, has also cooled its interest. Patrick Drahi, co-founder and largest shareholder of Altice, had intended to allocate around 10 billion euros to the Portuguese operation, but the proposals would still fall far short of that amount.
The same sources told Bloomberg that the agreement would take “several weeks.”
The biggest hurdle for STC is the greater political sensitivity of having a Saudi state company controlling an operator in Portugal. The STC offers as its “trump card” the recent increase in capital of the Spanish Telefonica and the possibility of merging Altice Portugal into the Spanish company in the future, creating an “Iberian giant” in the field of telecommunications.
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