Altice International - comment

Moody’s downgraded Altice International yesterday to Caa1, from B3 on the Secured and Caa3 from Caa2 for the unsecured bonds, with outlook on all entities changing to negative.  This is primarily driven by the €390m dividend Altice International paid in Q1.  In normal times, investors would have accepted the dividend as excess capital maintaining the company's leverage between 4.0-4.5x.  Moody’s does not allude to the current sales processes that are underway at Altice International.  In a scenario where the Company does not sell any assets, for whatever reason, it could well be viewed as a credit-positive story.  The sub-bonds, in particular, trade at a heavy discount mainly due to fear of adverse shareholder actions.