reports
- Russell Waller
Altice France equity (Neutral, TP: €10.3, -14%) Altice France bonds (E...
New Altice France debt and equity is now trading. Given the material change in bond terms, and the creation of a new separately traded equity piece, we reassess our rating, and think that at these levels the bonds look pretty fairly valued, and so take the bond rating to Equal weight from Overweight (the old bonds ended up +20% from the lows), and initiate on the equity with a Neutral, as we think that the equity is already implying a high probability of a deal happening, and see minimal underli...
- Russell Waller
Altice France (Overweight) Bouygues (Buy, TP: €52, +39%) Iliad (Equal ...
There have been a few recent reports that the sale process for XpFibre has heated up. It has been suggested that a sale might eventually be pulled and the stake used as a sweetener in any eventual deal; but actually, a sale could also be the first domino in the whole M&A process, as an XpFibre sale would help to ease leverage concerns that Bouygues might have from acquiring SFR. We still think a SFR-Bouygues deal is more likely than not by year end, and that Bouygues is the best way to play this...
- Russell Waller
Iliad (Equal Weight) Q2 25: Solid results overall despite worsening F...
Iliad has had a solid quarter overall, but French SR trends are clearly being impacted by the weakness in mobile pricing. There is a school of thought that pricing is weak because SFR is trying to hurry up the M&A process by being aggressive on price, HERE. If true, this implies that M&A will fix pricing one way or the other; either through market repair if a deal is done, or by SFR changing tack if a deal cannot be agreed
- Russell Waller
Orange (Buy, TP: €15.8, +19%) MasOrange (Equal Weight) It’s not all a...
We have been long-term Buyers of Orange, and are pleased about the YTD share price performance (+37% vs the sector +10%). Some of that outperformance is probably due to the prospect of French market repair (France is 56% of the value), but actually it is the Spanish and AME divisions that cause our target to rise to €15.8 from €14.9 post the Q2 results.
- Russell Waller
Orange (Buy, TP: €14.9, +14%) Q2 25: EBITDA guidance lifted thanks to...
Orange has reported a solid set of results, with Telco EBITDA c+0.3% ahead of consensus, and has lifted Group EBITDAaL guidance thanks to AME. French KPIs are solid, but French retail SR growth has turned negative y/y. There are some encouraging signs on French front-book low-end mobile pricing in July (HERE), but clearly overall conditions remain difficult (albeit Orange is doing a good job of off-setting those difficulties at the EBITDAaL level in France).
- Russell Waller
Altice International (Equal Weight) Sale process Hot-ting up in Israe...
Bezeq has confirmed that its subsidiary, Pelephone, has made an offer for Altice International’s Israeli business, Hot Mobile, HERE, for NIS2bn (c€500m). In addition, it seems that Cellcom and Hot have sold their stakes in IBC, HERE. Cellcom has sold its 23% stake for NIS520m (c€130m), and we would assume that Altice has sold its 23% stake for the same amount. In this report we look at the implications of the sales for ATCI lenders.
- Russell Waller
Altice France (Overweight) Iliad (Equal Weight) Bouygues (Buy, TP: €55...
There have been several recent articles about French M&A. The latest article from TMT finance yesterday has some fairly specific details, and most importantly, seems to suggest that the price demanded for SFR is now approaching what we would see as fair value.
- Blair Levin
- Jonathan Chaplin
Mobile and broadband pair trades to consider this summer
While we have been intensively focused on such things as a Presidential intervention to prevent a Chapter 11, we admit that our mind occasionally drifts to thoughts of summer. So to help others who may have similar thoughts, we thought, in honor of summer beginning, we should provide our thoughts as to which alcohols pair best with the purchase of the stocks we cover (actually, we just asked ChatGPT and, given its attitude about intellectual property, we have no fears about just cutting and pas...
- Russell Waller
- Russell Waller
NOS (Sell, TP: €3.11, -18%) Digi (Underweight) Altice International (E...
One of the key questions in European Telecoms at the moment is how successful will Digi be in Portugal, Spain and Belgium; and to a lesser extent, how successful can the challengers be in general: Salt, Iliad Italy, and so on. In this report, we take a top-down look at how spectrum drives success in European mobile, and what that means for future outcomes.
- Russell Waller
Iliad Q1 25: Solid results, but focus on M&A in Italy and France
Summary: Iliad has had a solid quarter overall, but French SR trends are clearly being impacted by the weakness in mobile pricing, and although Italy is performing OK, we do not believe Iliad when they say they don’t need M&A in Italy (as they did on this Q1 call), as we value Italy at a negative NPV including the cost of spectrum renewal. SFR is the only French telco yet to report; in terms of a read-across: The IFER tax (that knocked c7pp off EBITDA growth for Iliad this quarter) will not impa...
- Russell Waller
Orange (Buy, TP: €15.4, +24%) Q1 25: Solid numbers, guidance reiterat...
Orange has reported a solid set of results, with Telco revenue and EBITDA in-line with consensus expectations; the important French SR trends are slightly weaker (but ahead of consensus expectations), but all guidance for Group and divisions (including France) has been reiterated.
- Ben Rickett
- James Ratzer
- Russell Waller
EU TELCOS: What a recessionary scenario might look like
When the news of the Trump tariffs first hit the tapes, we didn’t write anything initially as a) we didn’t think we had much of value to add to the thousands of column inches already written on the topic, and b) the direct impact from the tariffs to the EU telecoms sector is minimal – resulting in relative outperformance for the group over the past few days.
- James Ratzer
- Russell Waller
M&A policy update – thoughts from Brussels and London with Pablo Asbo
It’s pretty clear that in-market M&A is a hot topic which we addressed in more detail in our recent sector M&A note. One of the reasons why speculation is rising about further deals is twofold we think: 1. Recent remedies in UK and Spain were non-intrusive in a historical context, making the deals attractive on a net basis; and 2. Politicians seem to be becoming more amenable to M&A, most notably Mario Draghi, and some are hoping that regulatory/legislative support will follow.
- Russell Waller
- Russell Waller
Orange (Buy, TP: €15.7, +35%) Altice France (SFR) (Most Preferred) Ili...
We were in Barcelona for the MWC this week. Please reach out if you would like to discuss any of the myriad of announcements made there. The biggest Telcos seemed to have focused their fire on in-market consolidation, with comments by the CEOs of Orange, DT and Telefonica.
- Russell Waller
- Russell Waller
Orange (Buy, TP: €15.1, +48%) Altice France (Most Preferred) Iliad (Eq...
Last week we reported in our tariff tracker, HERE, that some prices had risen in France. Since then, there have been further positive changes, including Iliad yesterday and Bouygues today, which we outline in this short report.
- Ben Rickett
- James Ratzer
- Russell Waller
European Telecoms: The Year Ahead 2025 Ongoing regulatory support all...
2024 saw the best outperformance for the telecoms sector since 2013 (and the third best since 2000) and ironically this came in a year with one of the lowest announced M&A volumes. We believe this is a testament to improved perception of the underlying fundamentals.
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