Person attributes
Other attributes
Patrick Drahi is a French-Moroccan-Israeli-Portuguese billionaire businessman who has been residing in Switzerland since 1999. He is the founder and controlling shareholder of the Europe-based telecom group, Altice, a telecom group in France. He owns Sotheby's and assets in France, the US, Portugal and Israel. According to Forbes, he is one of the world's top 200 billionaires.
Patrick Drahi was born in Morocco to a Jewish family in 1963 and possesses French, Israeli, and Portuguese citizenship. When he was 15 years old, Patrick Drahi's family moved to Montpellier, France. In 2013, Drahi established the international news channel i24news. This channel is located in Israel and broadcasts in French, Arabic, and English. He is the founder and controlling shareholder of the Luxembourg-based French telecom group Altice, which he established in 2001. Drahi Altice entered the American telecommunications market in 2015 by purchasing a 70 percent stake in Suddenlink Communications, a cable company in the United States. The company Suddenlink is valued at $9.1 billion. Drahi also owns the Israeli cable television company HOT. As of November 2015, Forbes estimated Patrick Drahis net worth to be $10.3 billion and ranks him as the 60th richest person in the world, the third richest person in France, and the richest person in Israel.
In the two years between the acquisition of Portugal Telecom and Media Capital, Patrick Drahi, under the established 2015 law, acquired Portuguese nationality after having been able to prove he descends from three Jewish families expelled from Portugal by D. Manuel I’s edict, in 1496: The Adrehi (a name which evolved to Drahi), the Sicsú, and the Amouyal. From the Adrehi and the Sicsú, there are records of their return to Faro in the 19th century, after the paths of Diaspora had led them first to Livorno (Italy), then Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, where Patrick was born in 1963. In the Algarve city, the Patrick Drahi’s ancestors are remembered as influential members of the Jewish community, with alleged proof in sight of whoever crosses the doors of the Lisbon Synagogue.
