Altice International - comment

As always, there are plusses and minuses when it comes to the Altice story.  On the plus side, management was very clear that the proceeds from the Teads sale would be used for debt repayment when the transaction closes in Q125.  In addition, the Company has restated its leverage target to 4-4.5x.

On the negative side, there is no cash coming from the sale of the BT stake.  To be clarified in the accounts, the borrower has changed from Altice UK to Altice Group Luxembourg, the holding company for all European assets, including SFR.  The loan is still pledged to the borrowers at Altice International and maturity is still October 2026, but realising the cash from this source is unlikely.  Note that Altice International is 100% owned by Luxembourg, which provides little leverage for challenging such an upstream loan construction.

Operationally, the numbers are weaker than we had expected.  Further details to be shared once the full accounts are published.  The decline appears to centre on Altice Labs, which sells hardware and services to other geographies.  We will update our model once accounts are published.