Altice faces hurdles in Cogeco deal as Audet family rejects $8.4 bn offer

Altice USA has faced a major setback as the C$11.1 billion ($8.43 billion) revised offer to acquire Cogeco was rejected on Sunday by the Canadian cable company’s top investor, the Audet family.
Altice USA said it sweetened its unsolicited offer to acquire Cogeco by adding a premium for shares held by the Audet family, which had rejected the previous offer.

“As we did on September 2nd, 2020, following the announcement of their first unsolicited proposal, members of the Audet family reject this further proposal,” Louis Audet, president of Gestion Audem said in a statement. “We repeat that this is not a negotiating strategy, but a definitive refusal. We are not interested in selling our shares.”

Gestion Audem is the holding company of the Audet family that holds 69 percent of the voting share of Cogeco.

Altice offered C$11.1 billion to acquire Cogeco, up from the C$10.3 billion bid that was rejected by the Audet family last month.

New York-based Altice said the revised offer included C$900 million to the Audet family for their ownership interests, from C$800 million previously.

It also revised its offer to Cogeco’s second-largest shareholder, Rogers Communications, to sell it all of Cogeco’s Canadian assets for C$5.2 billion.

Upon completion of the transaction, Altice USA would own all the U.S. assets of Cogeco and Rogers would own the Canadian assets, Altice said in a statement.

Altice said it would withdraw its revised offer if a deal was not reached by Nov. 18.