https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/altice-usas-unit-lightpath-looks-to-sell-asset-backed-securities-report/ar-AA1IgD9k
Anyone know what this means? Are they selling parts of Lightpath off?
8 replies (most recent on top)
This part of the loan securing process to service debt just like what Altice USA did today. See separate posts. Not selling Lightpath.
@qv How is this good for Lightpath?
@m5 they clearly are or they would not have greenlit it
this is a very good thing for lightpath's business, secondarily better thing for PD
@k1 I can’t see Morgan Stanley being ok with this.
Lightpath is a $400M a year business that barely grows. If they are putting $2.5B + in debt on this business it is just more of the same insanity. When Altice sold 49% of Lightpath to Morgan Stanley IP they took the proceeds and bought ATUS stock at $20+ per share. They would have been better off taking that money and lighting it on fire in the Bethpage parking lot and having a keg party. Insane decision making over and over.
no. it means they are "securitizing" (asset backed securitization) the assets to be able to write/refinance the lightpath debt. altice usa consists of debt for csc holdings (cablevision) cequel (suddenlink), and lightpath. this lets the company refinance some of the debt for lightpath at a lower rate, totaling $2.8billion.
keep in mind that altice usa has over $6billion of maturities in 2027, of which lightpath is a small fraction. if anything, this provides a roadmap for patrick to sell lightpath fully to morgan stanley infrastructure partners and exit the business and monetize his investment a bit more (patrick gets richer). the stock went up because if he were to sell it it would result in a small dividend to shareholders in the form of increased assets to the consolidated company
this does nothing to change the trajectory of altice usa's debt or financials, which remains highly leveraged in a (significantly) declining revenue environment. the core business structure is unsustainable and requires a recapitalization which is nearly impossible to do given the debt load and declining EBITDA
Seems like they are raising money using their assets as collateral
It means those are the lucky ones