There have been several bits of SFR-related newsflow over the past week or so, including some new tariffs in France (from Bouygues HERE, and a new cut from Iliad today), some press reports on Apollo lending (HERE), an xpFibre re-fi (HERE), an extension of the SteerCo co-operation agreement to Feb 2026 (HERE), a new valuation for Drahi’s stake in German Fibre JV OXG (HERE) and a new offer to lenders from Drahi (HERE).
Last night Bouygues announced a surprise change to tariffs and updated some of its guidance. The new tariffs revolve around discounts for multiple SIMs, and follow on from Iliad’s family plan announcement on 1 October. We give our take on the new plans and the impact to the market in this short piece.
In this iteration of “Broadband Trends” we explore whether fiber builds are accelerating and how it will impact Cable’s subscriber growth. We also reprise our work on the competitive positioning of the various operators based on relative NPS scores.
This report covers changes to our model to incorporate recent management commentary at investor conferences. We have increased broadband losses estimate. We also lowered revenue and EBITDA slightly. The company needs to stabilize EBITDA and reduce leverage. Progress on the first remains sluggish and the second won’t be easy. We remain on the sidelines.
When was the last time we could write that the EU Telecoms sector has been the second best performing sector in the market YTD? As a result, this raises the question of whether the outperformance can continue. We believe regulation will ultimately determine the answer to this question.
Sotheby’s has announced that it has sold a minority stake to ADQ, an Abu Dhabi-based investment and holding company for US$1bn. Under the terms of the agreement, “ADQ will acquire newly issued shares of Sotheby’s to reduce leverage and support the company’s growth and innovation plans” – details are thin, but in this short piece we look at how the proceeds might be used and how the price compares to our valaution.
Broadband industry growth has slowed over the last couple of quarters. For 2Q24, we expect reported broadband net adds below last year and pre-pandemic levels. We estimate that after adjusting for the one-time impact of ACP related disconnects, net adds were still below last year but were in-line with pre-pandemic levels. We think consensus expectations for the quarter are a little too negative, especially for Cable, and we expect reported adds to be slightly better than expectations.
European Telecoms has had a reasonable first half of 2024 – up 7% vs. the market up 9% - and is up 15% since January 2022 – bang in line with the EU market. The sector trades in line with the market on P/E for similar earnings growth, but we still see two major structural levers of upside:
Broadband subscriber losses in 2Q24 will likely be better than we thought previously because more of the ACP impact will be in 3Q24 than we thought previously (full year estimate remains unchanged). We also lowered revenue and EBITDA slightly. The company needs to stabilize EBITDA and reduce leverage. Progress on the first is slow and the second won’t be easy as it seems debtholders have organized. We remain on the sidelines.
In this iteration of “Broadband Trends” we explore the drivers of the slowdown in the broadband market and the path ahead over the next couple of quarters as the industry works through the unwinding of ACP. We also reprise our work on the competitive positioning of the various operators based on relative NPS scores.
There has been a lot of focus on the recent change in mobile price points from SFR/Bouygues. Orange has underperformed the CAC40 by c10% over the last 10 days. Most commentary we have seen, seems to worry that the move by SFR will start a new price war at the high end. We think that is probably not going to happen, and explain why in this report. That is good news for Orange, that looks oversold in our view.
We published our Global High Yield Quarterly this week – HERE. For a European perspective, we provide a summary of our thoughts and ideas on the European HY issuers in this piece, which takes excerpts from the Global HYQ and adds to it, including asset cover and a summary of our most preferred and least preferred names.
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