Altice owner says it wasn't ready for Time Warner Cable deal

Patrick Drahi, the billionaire owner of European telecommunications group Altice, said he didn't bid for Time Warner Cable because his company lacked management resources to digest such a big deal in a market it had only recently entered. "I didn't follow up on the exchanges we had on Time Warner Cable (TWC) that were mentioned in the media because we were not ready," Drahi told a French parliamentary hearing on May 28.

The 51-year-old Franco-Israeli businessman met with TWC chief executive Robert Marcus, but decided not to move ahead despite having lined up French and foreign banks willing to finance the deal. Instead, US number three cable group Charter Communications, backed by Drahi's mentor turned rival, cable tycoon John Malone, agreed to buy number two TWC for $56 billion. Drahi defended his decision saying the previously announced purchase of US regional cable firm Suddenlink Communications for $9.1 billion was a "modest" way for Altice to enter the US market and test its ability there. A deal for TWC would have been a step too far, too fast, Drahi said, quadrupling the number of US employees of Altice companies to nearly 120,000 in a market it barely knew.