Altice France will use cash raised from sale to repay bonds due 2025

By Devika Patel

Knoxville, Tenn., March 21 – Altice France SA plans to sell Altice Media to CMA CGM Group and Merit France for a total cash consideration of €1.55 billion and use the funds, along with liquidity, to repay debt.

“We had a blended weighted average life of 4.4 years and a blended weighted average cost of debt of 5.7% [at the end of the last quarter],” executive director of finance Benjamin Haziza said on the company’s fourth quarter and year ended Dec. 31 earnings conference call on Wednesday.

“[Our] leverage target of 4.5x net debt to EBITDA remains unchanged.

“Our unchanged priority is to deleverage.

“Specifically, our target is to deleverage inorganically by one full turn in the next 12 months.

“In order to achieve this, we are working on a number of inorganic actions.

“The transaction announced yesterday clearly reflects execution of this strategy through proactive management of our non-core asset portfolio,” he said.

The proceeds from the sale will address the 2025 bonds.

“With respect to the use of proceeds, our focus remains on addressing upcoming maturities with our nearest maturities being the 2025 bonds in January and February 2025,” Haziza said.

“We were able to redeem half of the 2025 bond maturities with the proceeds of the data centers and in addition to these proceeds, remember that the current liquidity position of Altice France is strong.

“At the end of the third quarter, before receiving any proceeds, we had €1.1 billion of liquidity.

“This includes approximately €850 million of undrawn revolving credit facilities, which we retain full access to, in addition to cash on the balance sheet of €300 million,” he said.

Total pro forma net debt was €24.1 billion at the end of the quarter.

At the end of the quarter, pro forma net leverage was 6x.

Altice is a Paris-based telecom.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.