Altice sweetens bid to acquire Canadian cable firm Cogeco

COGECO

19/10/2020 01:16

Oct 18 (Reuters) - Altice USA Inc  ATUS.N  said on Sunday it
had sweetened its unsolicited offer to acquire Canadian cable
company Cogeco  CGO.TO  by adding a premium for shares held by
the Audet family, who rejected the previous offer.
    Altice offered C$11.1 billion to acquire Cogeco, up from a
C$10.3 billion ($7.8 billion) deal rejected by major investor
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 largest shareholder,
Rogers Communications Inc  RCIb.TO , to sell it all of Cogeco's
Canadian assets for C$5.2 billion.
    Upon completion of the overall transaction, Altice USA would
own all the U.S. assets of Cogeco and Rogers would own the
Canadian assets, the company said in a statement.
    Altice said it would withdraw its revised offer if a deal
was not reached by Nov. 18.
    Members of the Audet family, which holds a majority voting
share in Cogeco via a holding company, reiterated last month
that they were not interested in selling their shares.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2FZ2EB
    

($1 = 1.3180 Canadian dollars)

 (Reporting by Sabahatjahan Contractor in Bengaluru; Editing by
Stephen Coates)
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