Patrick Drahi

Patrick Drahi
Born 1963 (age 5253)
Casablanca, Morocco
Residence Geneva, Switzerland
Nationality French, Israeli
Alma mater École Polytechnique
Occupation Businessman
Known for Founder and head of Altice
Net worth $7.9 billion (January 2016)[1]
Religion Judaism
Spouse(s) Lina Drahi
Children 4

Patrick Drahi (Hebrew: פטריק דרהי, Arabic: باتريك دراهي; born 1963) is a Moroccan-born businessman with French and Israeli citizenship,[2] living in Switzerland since 1999.[3] He is the founder and controlling shareholder of the Netherlands-based telecom group Altice listed on the Amsterdam stock exchange..

Biography

Patrick Drahi was born in Casablanca, Morocco to a Moroccan Jewish family. When he was 15 years old, the family moved to Montpellier, France. His parents are both math teachers. Drahi has an engineering degree from the École Polytechnique university in Paris (a post-graduate degree in optics and electronics).[1][4] He is married and lives in Geneva, Switzerland, with his Syrian Greek Orthodox wife;[5][6] they have four children.[1]

Business career

In 2013, Drahi founded the international news channel i24news. This channel is based in Israel, and broadcasts in French, Arabic, and English.[7]

Drahi and his group Altice entered the American telecommunications market in 2015 by purchasing a 70 per cent stake in Suddenlink Communications, the seventh largest cable company in the US. Suddenlink is valued at $9.1 billion.[8]

Drahi owns the Israeli cable television company HOT.[9]

As of November 2015 Forbes estimated Drahi's net worth at $10.3 billion. Forbes ranks him as the 60th richest person in the world, the third richest person in France.[10] He was ranked as the richest person in Israel until 2016, when he came in 2nd.[9][11]

The leaking of the Panama Papers in April 2016 confirmed publicly his identity as the shareholder of an offshore company.[12]

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/10/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.