16 FEB 2018
One of Altice’s largest institutional investors cashed-in its shareholding due to concerns about the company’s $50 billion debt pile and future prospects of its SFR unit, Financial Times reported.
The newspaper said investor Carmignac Gestion – which picked up a stake in a 2014 Altice IPO and had accumulated a 3 per cent stake by September 2017 – sold out in November, a move which only just come to light.
Its sale came the same month Altice reported its debt pile stood at around $50 billion at end Q3 2017 and revealed the departure of CEO Michel Combes.
Financial Times sources said among the reasons for the sale was the threat of rising interest rates impacting the company’s huge debt level and the fading prospect of consolidation in the French operator market – in which Altice-owned SFR was tipped to play a part.
Since its Q3 results, the company worked on reducing its debt level stating it would dispose of non-core assets before mid 2018 and scale back its previously aggressive M&A activity, which is largely responsible for the accumulation of debt.
Altice’s Dominican Republic unit was rumoured to be first on the chopping block with speculation also surrounding the future of its subsidiary Portugal Telecom.
In January, it detailed plans to formally separate Altice USA – which was the subject of an IPO in 2017 – from its European arm as part of a plan to reorganise its business.
More details on the company’s progress and direction is expected alongside Altice’s Q4 2017 financial results, due for release on 15 March.
https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/top-three/major-altice-investor-walks-away/
14 replies (most recent on top)
Executives are laughing at us . They are accumulating as much compensation as possible before the sell off begins. We will all be working for Comcast , Charter and any other buyer .
Altice USA Inc Class A (ATUS)
19.15 -0.66 (-3.33%) 02/20/18 [NYSE]
18.25 x 1 19.13 x 9
POST-MARKET 19.15 unch (unch) 16:01 ET
for Tue, Feb 20th, 2018
no on-call? Morris FTTH Guys do On-call......
what’s going to happen to all the guys working on the rebuild, when it’s sh@t canned like in France ...?? All you guys loving all the OT , early shifts , smoke and mirrors... no on-call ....!! Enjoy it now...
Jonathan Chaplin:
"Dexter, I guess my follow-up question would be, what do you lose in terms of the sort of the consolidated purchasing benefits that you were looking for when you set ATS up in the first place?"
Dexter Goei:
"Well, it’s interesting. It’s a very good question. Our view on ATS is that, even though it will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of AT U.S., we definitely want to continue to run it as if it was a third party supplier. The attention and the benefits that we’ve received in terms of efficiencies and performance have been material, and so the way we’re organizing ourselves to host them back within is to effectively leave them as an existing separate business. You’ll see it consolidated in our accounts but in terms of how we operate that business, it’ll be run as if it was a separate business today. We use the analogy of the difference between a spring cleaning and a move out of house. The creation of ATS was a move and it created tremendous amount of synergies and we started seeing that in Q3 and Q4 of this year and we expect to see material numbers coming out of it in 2018. But the reality of it is the complexity of the organization lends itself to bringing it back in-house from a consolidation standpoint but from an operation standpoint we’re going to keep it completely separate given that the move has been made and we’ve been reaping the benefits of that."
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1702780/000110465918001528/a17-28980_9fwp.htm'
Despite them ruining the company , the 3 amigos will still make money. They make their money whether or not the company goes belly up or not. Hate the game not the player. The truth is the longer you stay at Altice the more you lower your value in the industry. Employers in the area are being saturated with Altice resumes which are now of much lower grade stock. Soon they will start to over-look Altice candidates entirely. What kind of men are you? Complaining about going a little further away to make some real money ,instead you prefer to work up the road like a housewife. Do not settle for that place. Leave.
They have from investors all the way down to employees walking away from the company, which is just sad and pathetic. They just ruined both our companies in a few months which took years to build with good hard American sweat, blood and tears.
PAY YOUR BILLS ALTICE!!!!..... even the name just plainly sux
Again you are being lied to Ats is being used as a vendor/supplier to Altice Usa they have you in their back pocket and will use you /eliminate you when it’s convenient for them you are a bill a vendor and what do they do to vendors, they want to pay less and less, by making your lives miserable have they done any major hiring since the 200 or more Ats employees left to spectrum? That’s a big no! Keep listening to management, interested in a bridge i’m Selling? You can add a toll booth and make millions
Ats was transferred to us operations. We are all in for a sh&$show.
Wrong answer they did not it’s not in the psc agreement this was done before Ats was ever created what you failed to realize is that management could lie to you, It is not illegal Ats fell for The okey doke
ATS honored the PSC agreement. We're as safe as USA relax.
Usa has a PSC agreement all the money is in ATS the highly paid 3rd party supplier that’s out of DG mouth to his investors, Ats is not safe
Put up the for sale sign!
USA side in deep deep water !!!!! Those U haven’t signed over to the ATS scam .. will be let go soon .... those are the highest paid employees... Union or Not USA doomed