Altice sweetens bid to acquire Canadian cable firm Cogeco

(Reuters) – Altice USA Inc said on Sunday it had sweetened its unsolicited offer to acquire Canadian cable company Cogeco 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 , 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.

($1 = 1.3180 Canadian dollars)

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