Multinational telecommunications company Altice has elected to rebrand a number of the businesses it acquired during an acquisition drive in an effort to better position itself in the content and distribution marketplace.
Altice’s purchases in recent years include SFR, France’s second biggest telco, along with Portugal Telecom and US cable television operators, Cablevision and Suddenlink. These operations will be rebranded as Altice.
“We are transforming from a holding company with a collection of different assets and brands around the world, to one unified global group with one single brand,” Michel Combes, chief executive of Altice, said, according to the Financial Times newspaper.
SFR’s pay-television broadcaster SFR Sport this month secured exclusive rights to the Uefa Champions League and Europa League club football competitions from the 2018-19 season, ousting rival operators beIN Sports and Canal Plus as the rights-holder.
Both French newspaper L’Équipe and the Reuters news agency said SFR Sport will pay €350m ($384.3m) per season for the rights, which will run across the 2018-19 to 2020-21 seasons of the two showpiece club competitions of European football’s governing body.