reports
- 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
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
Altice France (Overweight) Key questions from the Q1 25 results and m...
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...
- Russell Waller
Altice France (SFR) Q1 25: Positive new OpFCF guidance despite weak SR...
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...
- Russell Waller
Altice France (SFR) (Over Weight) Q4 24: Trends remain tough, but som...
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.
- Russell Waller
- Russell Waller
- Russell Waller
Altice France (SFR) (Most Preferred) Altice France reaches agreement ...
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
- Russell Waller
Altice France (Most preferred) xpFibre ReCap and potential stake sale...
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
- Ben Rickett
- James Ratzer
- Russell Waller
EU Telecoms - M&A Outlook for 2025 The Calm Before the Storm
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.
- Russell Waller
Altice France (SFR) (Most Preferred) Q3 24: Weaker B2C SR trends in Fr...
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.
- Russell Waller
- Russell Waller
Altice France (Most Preferred) Updating Drahi net worth for recent ne...
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).
- Russell Waller
Orange (Buy, TP: €14, +35%) Altice France (SFR); High Yield (Overweigh...
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.
- Jonathan Chaplin
2Q24 Broadband Trends: Are fiber builds accelerating?
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.
- Jonathan Chaplin
Altice Pre-3Q24 Model Update
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.
- Ben Rickett
- James Ratzer
- Russell Waller
EU TELECOMS REFRESH: Can the outperformance continue?
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.
- Russell Waller
- Russell Waller
- Russell Waller
Altice France (Most Preferred) Altice International (Most Preferred) ...
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.
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