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$7.1 billion ?
Country of citizenship: France
Origin: Morocco
Source: Telecom, Self-Made
Telecom magnate, Patrick Drahi, holds 60% of the stock of Altice NV, the publicly-traded multi-national that he founded. Drahi was born in Casablanca Morocco. He built Altice through more than 20 acquisitions of lagging cable and mobile operators and has expanded further with highly-leveraged deals. Through the Netherlands-based Altice he owns 75% of Numericable, France’s largest cable operator. He stormed the U.S. in 2015 by buying a 70% stake in cable operator Suddenlink for $9 billion and snapping up Cablevision for $17.7 billion. Those U.S. entities were spun off into Altice USA, which went public in June 2017. In October 2019, Drahi acquired auction house Sotheby’s for about $2.6 billion, taking the 275-year-old firm private.