Patrick Drahi, known to some as the “cable cowboy, ” is going to buy seven magazines from Belgian-based Roularta Media Group, as reported by Reuters. Drahi, founder of Altice, won out over Vivendi and Le Figaro.
Drahi, France’s Moroccan Jewish cable maven, has been buying up assets lately, most recently, SFR and Portugal Telecom, as well as the French left wing newspaper, Liberation.
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The deal with Roularta would include: L’Express, L’Expansion, Mieux Vivre Votre Argent, Lire, Classica, Pianiste and Studio Cine Live as well as several websites.
Drahi’s last spree of print media acquisitions was in 2006, when he bought 10 French newspapers, but circulations dropped somewhat after the acquisitions. Roularta gets 75% of its revenue from print media.
Drahi was an entrepreneur of cable when it was new in France. He managed to sell his cable company to UPC, and then sold his UPC shares before the dot.com bubble burst. Since he didn’t lose out in the dot.com fiasco, he was able to start his company Altice in 2001, and started making major cable acquisitions.
