Article content continued
The Audet family would have received $800 million for its ownership interests and voting shares if it had accepted the offer.
“When you have a family that controls a business like this, there may be certain lifestyle and other considerations where … they kind of like the way things are, they don’t want to topple the apple cart,” said Edward Jones analyst Dave Heger.
Cogeco was founded by Henri Audet in Quebec in 1957 and, like Bombardier Inc., it has remained under family control since. Henri Audet’s son, Louis Audet, ran Cogeco for 25 years before stepping aside in 2018 to become the executive chairman. The Audet family, however, maintained its strong position in both Cogeco and Cogeco Communications.
Beyond the family’s own apparent desire to retain the company, Desjardins Securities analyst Maher Yaghi said in a note that Altice may face a barrier in the form of the Quebec government. The Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec owns 22 per cent of Atlantic Broadband, he said, and further pushback may come from Quebecor Inc. not wanting Rogers to own cable assets in the province.
When asked about the Altice offer, Quebec Premier Francois Legault told local media “there is no question” of moving Cogeco’s head office outside of the province. “We will do everything to keep the head office here,” Legault said.
Conversely, there shouldn’t be any opposition put up by the Competition Bureau or the CRTC, Yaghi said.
In a statement published before the Audet family signalled its intention to block the offer, Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said he was confident that the Audet family and Cogeco’s boards would “act in the best interest of all shareholders and fairly evaluate this offer.” Rogers CEO Joe Natale was equally optimistic over the “opportunity to expand (Rogers’) breadth of industry leading technologies and products to an additional 1.8 million homes and businesses.”
