French cable executive Patrick Drahi has purchased a 14.96% share in the Israeli cable operator HOT. The founder of Altice, the key investor in the French cablenet Numericable, purchased the stake through Cool Holding Ltd for NIS381 million (€69.25m).
The price received by Bank Leumi is considerably lower than the offer made by telco Netvison in their attempt to enter HOT six months ago, though the bank is still expected to record a NIS120m profit on the transaction
Drahi was part of the former UPC management that owned a 48% share in Tevel, one of the cable companies that merged into HOT.