reports
- Russell Waller
- Jonathan Chaplin
Broadband market growth slower in 1Q24
Broadband industry growth slowed in 4Q23. We wondered, exiting the quarter, whether growth would level off or slow further in 1Q24. Based on the data we have collected so far, it appears that growth has slowed further, and possibly quite materially. We suspect slower growth will impact all operators, although for fiber, it should be partly offset by footprint expansion.
- Russell Waller
- Russell Waller
Altice International Q4 23: Good numbers, all disposal options seem ...
Altice International reported a solid set of results today. The war in Israel has impacted the Israeli numbers, but broadly as expected. Portugal continues to perform very nicely, and overall the guidance suggests that ATCI, like NOS (read HERE), see minimal impact from Digi in 2024. The guidance looks sensible (conservative), but German construction revenue could be a big delta to numbers, and the impact here remains uncertain.
- Russell Waller
Billionaires compared Is it right that Xavier Niel businesses have t...
The European Telco landscape is dominated by three high profile billionaires. Patrick Drahi, John Malone, and Xavier Niel. They all have multiple debt silos, and large empires, but the bonds trade at very different spreads. In this note, we look at why that might be the case, and in particular, if the Niel businesses deserve to trade at tighter spreads. We think they do, which means that Xavier Niel should be able to continue to raise funds cheaply (albeit the Iliad spreads widened after the Tel...
- Russell Waller
- Russell Waller
Altice France Does Teads hold the key to delevering?
A break-up of Altice International, is, we are told, option A for delevering at Altice France. According to press reports however, there is a gap between the offers made for Altice Portugal and the amount that Patrick Drahi wants (€7bn of proceeds wanted vs €5bn-€6bn offered); because Altice International debt will have to be repaid in the event of a sale of Portugal, €5bn of proceeds might not be enough to persuade Drahi to sell, as the amount of cash that could be up-streamed might be too smal...
- Russell Waller
Altice France Does Teads hold the key to delevering?
A break-up of Altice International, is, we are told, option A for delevering at Altice France. According to press reports however, there is a gap between the offers made for Altice Portugal and the amount that Patrick Drahi wants (€7bn of proceeds wanted vs €5bn-€6bn offered); because Altice International debt will have to be repaid in the event of a sale of Portugal, €5bn of proceeds might not be enough to persuade Drahi to sell, as the amount of cash that could be up-streamed might be too smal...
- Russell Waller
- Russell Waller
Altice How much is Sotheby's worth?
Patrick Drahi’s net worth is an important topic for all three Altice silo bondholders. We first wrote about that HERE. We update those thoughts in this report, based on the recent financial results at Sotheby’s. We evaluate performance since Sotheby’s was taken private and give our thoughts on valuation as well.
- Russell Waller
French M&A: Is it possible? Proprietary survey suggests GUPPI ratio ...
On Iliad’s Q3 call, Iliad said that it had attempted M&A “seven times” before, but that it was no longer possible due to “the size of the companies merging and the complexities from an anti-trust perspective”. In this report, we update the diversion and GUPPI ratios from our recent proprietary survey, to see if Iliad is right.
- Russell Waller
Altice France Q3 23: Still as many questions as answers
Altice France has reported a mixed set of results. On the one hand, B2C SR trends are better sequentially in both fixed and mobile, but underlying Telecom EBITDA growth is worse y/y in Q3 23 than Q2 23, and it looks like cost control was poor this quarter.
- Russell Waller
- Russell Waller
Altice France UltraEdge sale - the important first step has been taken
Ahead of its results on Wednesday (read our preview HERE), Altice France has announced the sale of a 70% stake in its data centre business (UltraEdge) to Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners (MSIP) for a 100% EV of €764m (€535m of proceeds). In addition, SFR will enter into a build-to-suit agreement with UltraEdge by which SFR is expected to generate c€175m of additional proceeds within the next 7 years. We show the implications of this deal in this short report.
- Russell Waller
Altice France Q3 2023 preview: How bad could it be?
Iliad reported results last week, and in our Q3 comment we showed some analysis looking at possible implied SFR growth rates and net adds given that everyone but SFR has reported (HERE). In this report, we update that analysis to show a sensitivity to different market growth rates and how SR might drop through to EBITDA. Numbers are sensitive, and there are lots of caveats, but it doesn’t look good for SFR. Altice France reports on the 22nd November.
- Russell Waller
Altice International Portugal valuation update
Ahead of the Portugal deep-dive call on Friday 20th October, 11am, 4am UK time (register HERE), we update our Altice International SOP, looking at comps for previous NetCo deals (updating our FastFiber valuation as part of the process), cross-checking our ServCo estimates vs our Digi top-down forecasts and comp-ing ServCo to other ServCo valuations as well. The attached will be the slide deck for the call.
- Russell Waller
Altice France and Altice International How much cash can be up-stream...
News moves pretty fast with Altice. In the last week or so, Les Echos has reported a possible €3bn stake sale at Altice France; there have been reports there is a live Portugal sale process, and now it would appear that a break-up of Altice International is on the cards. We update our thoughts on these reports in this short piece
- Russell Waller
What is Altice International worth in a break-up scenario
News moves pretty fast with Altice. In the last week or so, Les Echos has reported a possible €3bn stake sale at Altice France; there have been reports there is a live Portugal sale process, and it would now appear that a break-up of Altice International is on the cards.
- Ben Rickett
- James Ratzer
- Russell Waller
Altice: How a BT takeover could help to solve debt issues Could Drahi...
Conventional wisdom would say that to delever one needs to sell rather than buy assets. However, in this deep-dive note we explore the left-field idea that launching a full takeover of BT could actually help Drahi to increase his liquidity as one option to help support the deleveraging of Altice France by over 1x.
Unfortunately, this report is not available for the investor type or country you selected.
Report is subscription only.
Thank you, your report is ready.
Thank you, your report is ready.