Altice co-president leaves group after corruption scandal

The corruption cases at Altice continue to cause a stir. One of the co-general managers of the Altice Europe group and general manager of Altice USA, Alexandre Fonseca, announced Thursday January 4 on X his departure from the group after being suspended. “I would like to inform you that the Altice group and I have reached an agreement that ends a relationship of more than a decade, in which I have put all my commitment and dedication”, indicated the co-CEO, his exact title within Altice. Contacted, Altice Portugal confirms that “the Altice group has reached an agreement with Alexandre Fonseca terminating his employment contract, as well as all executive and non-executive functions he exercised”.

Before being named CEO of Altice USA in March, Alexandre Fonseca held the position of director of the board of directors of Altice Portugal. While he himself was not targeted by the instruction, he was suspended from his functions after Armando Pereira, co-founder of Altice with Patrick Drahi and co-CEO of the group, was arrested in an investigation for corruption in Portugal. Portuguese businessman Armando Pereira, suspected of 11 acts of corruption and money laundering, is also suspected of having set up a network of dubious suppliers with the aim of embezzling large sums of money via group purchasing policy. Armando Pereira disputes these suspicions.

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Measures taken to avoid new scandals

Following this scandal which threatened to shake up Patrick Drahi’s empire, around fifteen employees, including a manager of the group in France, were suspended. Patrick Drahi said he felt “betrayed and deceived by a small group of individuals”. Despite the corruption scandal, a branch of the group, Altice International, managed to borrow 800 million euros on the markets in October. Patrick Drahi kept repeating this summer that this scandal would not have “no impact” on Altice’s finances and forecasts.

Altice International announced at the end of November, when publishing its third quarter results, that it had taken measures to “strengthen several internal control processes” in order to effectively prevent, detect and mitigate the risk of any potential individual misconduct in the future.