Paris: The multi-national business empire Altice of French-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi is currently embroiled in a corruption scandal, but he is scheduled to make a rare appearance before investors this week.

A few weeks after one of his top lieutenants was arrested in Portugal, Swiss-based Drahi, whose empire spans telecommunications and media in Europe, Israel, and North America, is anticipated to make an effort to allay investor concerns.

Portuguese billionaire Armando Pereira is accused by local authorities of 11 counts of corruption and money laundering, with the main charge being that he set up a network of fake suppliers to steal money through Altice's procurement process.

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Pereira disputes the allegations, but the scandal has spread from Portugal to other parts of Drahi's empire, leading to the dismissal, suspension, or retreat of executives in the US and France.

According to the French magazine Challenge, Drahi, who generally maintains a low profile, has accumulated a fortune estimated to be worth more than $10 billion, ranking him as the 13th richest person in France.

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Through leveraged acquisitions, he pieced together a network of businesses, and today he dominates the telecom industries in France, Israel, Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Switzerland.

Drahi, a well-known art enthusiast who also owns the broadband company Altice USA and a portion of BT in Britain, purchased Sotheby's in 2019.

However, his investment binge was only made possible by accumulating a mountain of debt totaling about $60 billion.

Investors will be closely watching Drahi's calls with investors on Monday and Tuesday as interest rates are rising and the corruption scandal is making headlines.

The business has made an effort to downplay the investigation by stating that it is working with law enforcement and emphasising the fact that several employees have been suspended.

Despite being widely regarded as Drahi's right-hand man, Pereira holds no official position within the organisation.

Only a small number of the companies mentioned in the Portuguese inquiry had business relationships with Altice, according to Arthur Dreyfuss, CEO of Altice France, who spoke at a meeting with labour unions on Wednesday.

In terms of volume, he said, "At this point, this represents less than 4% of our annual purchases."
The nature of the allegations, however, suggested that the company may have fundamental problems, according to Olivier Lelong of the CFDT trade union, who was present at the meeting on Wednesday.
Expenses are the group's item that is most closely monitored on a daily basis, he claimed.
There must have been a problem with the company's control and governance because it was so large.

Drahi, 59, who was born in the Moroccan city of Casablanca, moved to France when he was 15 years old and eventually enrolled at the Ecole Polytechnique, France's top engineering institution.

After beginning his career as a fiber-optics company employee, he struck out on his own and acquired a number of struggling cable and mobile operators before making a major breakthrough in 2014 when he acquired control of SFR, France's second-largest mobile operator.

From there, he expanded his vast empire, earning the nickname "cost killer" from unions for his propensity to streamline the businesses he acquired.
Drahi is currently facing one of his biggest challenges to date as a result of the corruption allegations and rising interest rates that are forcing him to renegotiate the terms of his loans.

Patrick Drahi's success has been based on being able to access affordable debt, according to PMP Strategy partner Denis Lafarge, who spoke to AFP.

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Drahi has long relied on selling off infrastructure, such as telecom masts and fibre networks, to raise money because he is a savvy financial operator.

Lafarge claimed that although his options were dwindling, he still had some assets that could be sold, including the Meo operator in Portugal and a few data centres.

Rising inflation, according to Sylvain Chevallier of the BearingPoint consultancy, will allow companies like Altice to raise prices and generate additional revenue. However, Drahi must act now to stop the harm the corruption investigation is causing. Dreyfuss said, "It's crucial for him to speak out. Altice is a victim of all of this, at least until we have evidence to the contrary.