Altice Portugal has dismissed as “rumours” reports owner Patrick Drahi has hired Lazard’s Bank to explore a sale of the former Portugal Telecom.
It’s six years since the French businessman and Portuguese company Armando Pereira acquired the company from Oi.
One suggestion is that Lazard is going as far as to make a sale having initially been asked to explore potential buyers among industry players and private equity.
Altice Portugal responded with a statement saying the story was simply the recurrence of an old rumour.
“These are rumours and speculations that, as is public knowledge, have been recurrent in the last five years, not only relating to the operation of the Altice Group in Portugal, but also regarding other assets of the Group
“Faced with the adverse, hostile and unpredictable regulatory environment that we have lived in Portugal for more than 2 years, it is still ‘normal’ for this type of rumour to appear.”