The consortium bid is for Altice France ex XpFibre (XP), Altice Technical Services (ATS), French Overseas Territories (FOT), Intelcia, and UltraEdge (UE). The consortium valued these assets at €4bn. Disclosure is limited, but we’ve done some more digging, and have found some accounts filed in France, that help us value these assets more accurately, we think.
Press reports are suggesting that a Tef-Zegona deal in Spain is progressing. We wrote about that HERE. A deal will be tricky for a variety of reasons, but if Digi is a willing remedy taker and if Telefonica/ Zegona are willing to give very substantial remedies (which is a big if), then the deal might receive regulatory approval we think.
The valuation of fibre assets is important for all Telco investors, but especially those looking at Altice France and Altice International. In this report we look at recent fibre deals and see if we can draw any conclusions Over a month has now passed since the consortium bid for SFR (HERE); whilst face-to-face negotiations do not appear to be happening (as per Q3 calls), it would appear that negotiations via the press are in full swing – HERE and HERE – and back channel discussions are ongoing ...
The valuation of fibre assets is important for all Telco investors, but especially those looking at Altice France and Altice International. In this report we look at recent fibre deals and see if we can draw any conclusions from those deals about future valuations.
After months of speculation, there is finally an offer for SFR in France. The deal structure is a lot more complicated than we thought it would be, but we think the offer is a fair one. We think the offer implies a synergy payment of €4.2bn, and values the SFR equity at €15/share, if XpFibre, UltraEdge, ATS, Intelcia, and FOT are indeed worth €4bn, as the release suggests.
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...
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.
Last week SFR reported weak numbers at the SR and EBITDA level (HERE). We are surprised the bonds have not been sold off more. Possibly that is because new OpFCF guidance is for OpFCF to be up y/y despite the EBITDA declines, and/or investors think fundamentals are not important when there is a high chance of M&A. We are overweight the bonds based on the likelihood that M&A happens this year – HERE – but absent M&A, it is hard to find much to cheer about in the results: KPIs are solid, but stabi...
Altice France has reported Q1 25 results which are quite weak at both the SR and EBITDA level. There is new guidance on OpFCF, which is for it be up y/y (i.e. for capex declines to offset EBITDA declines (which slipped to –11.6% y/y ex construction from –11.2% y/y in Q4 24)), which is a positive, but we can’t help but feel that the OpFCF guidance has been given in order to distract from the weak underlying numbers. We are overweight the bonds based on the likelihood that M&A happens this year bu...
Altice France reported results today and gave a lot more detail than they have done recently, including allowing some Q&A on the call. We give a preliminary overview of the trends in this report and will host a call in the coming days to look at the results in more detail, as there were some interesting new developments, including comments on M&A, NPS, KPIs, xpFibre sale and HFC switch-off.
Altice France has finally reached an agreement with its creditors (SSN and unsecureds). The agreement is pretty similar to the Cleansing statement (the main change being an equity stale for the unsecureds), and implies a c17% write-down in SSN before the equity stake. The equity stake is an important part of the deal, and we are currently below implied consensus expectations for the value here
TMT has published an interview with Andras Kranicz, Managing Director and Head of Infrastructure Finance Europe, BNP Paribas, in which a €5.8bn refinancing package is mentioned for xpFibre. The article goes on to talk about a potential xpFibre stake sale by Drahi. We run through the implications of this news in this short piece
The sector has had one of its best years for share price performance in 2024. This is impressive, but even more so when one considers that there is limited M&A premium embedded in any share prices – indeed 2024 saw the lowest amount of M&A activity since 2016.
Altice France reported results today, there was no Q&A on the call. We give a preliminary overview of the trends in this report, and will host a call on Monday of next week to look at the results in more detail, including a deep dive into valuation, as it is looks increasingly likely that bondholders will receive an equity stake in NewCo as part of any future deal with Drahi.
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.
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