Audet Family Rebuffs Increased Altice USA Bid for Cogeco
October 19 2020 - 6:52AM
Dow Jones News
By Colin Kellaher
Altice USA Inc. raised its offer to buy Cogeco Inc. and Cogeco
Communications Inc. to about 11.1 billion Canadian dollars (US$8.4
billion), but the family that controls the telecommunications
companies once again said it isn't interested in selling.
Altice, which covets Cogeco's U.S. unit Atlantic Broadband,
previously bid about C$10.1 billion for the companies, with plans
to sell Cogeco's Canadian businesses to Rogers Communications
Inc.
However, Gestion Audem, the Audet family holding company that
holds 69% of the voting rights of Cogeco, which in turn controls
82.9% Cogeco Communications' voting rights, rejected the new
proposal.
"Since this is apparently not registering with Rogers and
Altice, we repeat today that this is not a negotiating strategy,
but a definitive refusal," said Louis Audet, who is president of
Gestion Audem and serves as executive chairman of both Cogeco and
Cogeco Communications. "We are not interested in selling our
shares."
Altice, based in Long Island City, N.Y., said it will pull the
revised bid if can't reach an agreement or, "at the very least, it
does not see a clear path forward to completion of a transaction"
by Nov. 18.
Write to Colin Kellaher at colin.kellaher@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 19, 2020 06:37 ET (10:37 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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