Patrick Drahi overthrows the management of SFR

Still on vacation for many of them, SFR employees will discover a new direction at the start of the school year. Patrick Drahi, the owner of the telecom operator, announced Tuesday, August 23 at the end of the day, in a “note to employees” sent by email, the departures, “effective as of today”the CEO, Grégory Rabuel, and Fabien Costa, executive director of the operator’s consumer activities.

Faithful to Patrick Drahi, Grégory Rabuel was a historical executive of the group: he joined Numericable in 2004 as customer manager, he had gradually climbed all the levels of the cable operator. After the takeover of SFR in 2014, Patrick Drahi chose him to lead the consumer activities of the operator, the heart of the reactor, before appointing him CEO in July 2021.

In his note to employees, where he mentions a decision by a ” agreement “Patrick Drahi “Warmly and warmly thank Grégory for the colossal work carried out in recent years”. On the other hand, no comment accompanies the “end of duties” by Fabien Costa. He, too, had only been in that position for a year. Grégory Rabuel is replaced by Mathieu Cocq, currently Executive Director Overseas and present at SFR since 2013. Eric Pradeau takes over Fabien Costa’s duties.

The note to employees does not reveal the reasons for this sudden double departure. But, according to a union source, the duo bears the brunt of SFR’s poor commercial performance in recent months. The 7.4% increase in mobile revenue in the second quarter of 2022 is due to the integration of Coriolis and Syma, two virtual operators (MVNO) acquired last May. Without it, financial analysts at CreditSights estimate that quarterly sales would have fallen by 2% in mobile.

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In fixed (fiber and ADSL), revenues eroded by 0.8%. SFR has been losing fiber and ADSL customers for nearly a year and a half almost continuously, while its three competitors (Orange, Bouygues Telecom and Free) are gaining them every quarter. Logically, this erosion of income weighs on profits. After a fall of 3.6% in the first quarter, the gross operating income of the telecom branch of Altice Europe deteriorated further by 0.1% in the following three months, despite the positive effect on the costs of the voluntary departure plan launched in 2021. The purchase of the two MVNOs also weighed on earnings.

SFR has been losing fiber and ADSL customers for almost a year and a half almost continuously, while its three competitors are gaining them every quarter

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