After the shock of the arrest of Armando Pereira, on July 13, 2023, for alleged acts of corruption, Altice (SFR, BFM-TV, etc.) is learning to live without the unofficial number two of Patrick Drahi’s group. How to do without the Portuguese businessman, who escaped nothing at SFR, the telecoms operator? Management of the subscriber base, investments in optical fiber, agreements with media groups, relations with suppliers… everything went back to Mr. Pereira, present at the headquarters of Altice France, in Paris, for at least one or two days per week, where he controlled the main asset of the Drahi empire with an iron fist.
Questioned in October by the central social and economic committee (CSEC) of SFR on the consequences of the sudden absence of Patrick Drahi’s historic partner, the operator’s management responded that it was not “a factor slowing down the decision-making process, even less a handicap to the implementation of these decisions. On the contrary. » The operator would therefore live better without his former number two.
On the ground, however, the shock wave was violent. Overnight, the operator ended relations with the nine suppliers incriminated in the case because they had relations with Armando Pereira or the other defendants. These companies, some of which only had SFR as a client, provided a total of 45 different services: IT services (IT Center), layout of SFR stores or BFM-TV studios (Tirion), air conditioning of offices (JPN), purchasing of telecom equipment (Aciernet and Edge Technologies)… Replacements had to be found at short notice. Some suppliers who, in recent years, had lost their place to companies close to Armando Pereira were even urgently recalled. As of December 31, all links with the nine providers were cut.
Rearrangements
Suddenly, around ten executives were suspended or fired because they were involved in the companies in question or because they were too close to Armando Pereira. Around forty others were interviewed, on a voluntary basis, by the two law firms – Ropes & Gray and DLA Piper – mandated by Altice to conduct an audit of the group’s practices.
Their phones and computers were examined. A period that was poorly experienced internally, with some executives wondering why they found themselves in the viewfinder when none of the great historical managers of Altice were worried, apart from Alexandre Fonseca, the boss of the Portuguese subsidiary, who did not Yossi Benchetrit, purchasing director of Altice USA and son-in-law of Armando Pereira, left the group only at the beginning of January, after six months of being sidelined.
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