French cable/mobile group Altice continues to buy and sell assets round the world. It has acquired a 12.1% stake in UK incumbent BT for a reported $3.1bn, becoming the telco’s largest shareholder by a whisker (it has 0.1% larger stake than Deutsche Telekom, whose holding in BT came about when the latter acquired EE, formerly a UK joint venture between DT and Orange). Altice chairman Patrick Drahi assured the BT board that this was not the prelude to a hostile takeover bid, and meanwhile, he seems to want to offload some other assets to help meet the bill for BT. In particular, Altice Europe is said to be looking for buyers for its Portuguese business, though the reported price tag…