Plans by the billionaire Patrick Drahi’s Altice cable group to acquire Portuguese Telecom are likely to bring an end to the tie up with Brazilian carrier Oi.
Portugal Telecom operates the highly successful Meo IPTV platform and any such merger would like the company with the Cabovisao cablenet.
The financial press has reported that Drahi could reach an agreement within the next few weeks. Any such deal would need to the approval of Oi, given that it controls the merged entity.
Officially the merger has yet to complete, with the Brazilian carrier holding just a minority stake in PT.
It’s the latest hi profile interest for Altice, which earlier this year agreed to buy French mobile-phone carrier SFR in a $23 billion deal that will merge the company with French cablenet Numericable.
