Altice’s Drahi reportedly mulling sale of SFR stake

Altice boss Patrick Drahi is reportedly looking at a range of options to reduce his company’s debit pile, including the partial sale of Altice France, operator of SFR, a move that was until recently considered to be off the table.

According to financial daily Les Echos, citing unnamed sources, Altice has tapped banks Lazard and BNP to lead a ‘teaser’ outlining the planned partial sale to potential buyers, prioritizing private equity funds. According to the paper, Drahi is looking at a valuation of €3 billion for the sale of a minority stake. Altice would aim to see SFR itself valued at around €30 billion or eight times EBITDA.

The possibility of a sale of part of SFR was initially reported by Le Monde.

The Figaro newspaper meanwhile reports that Altice has mandated a number of banks to test the waters across a range of fronts, with industry players such as KPN, Orange or Liberty Global mentioned alongside private equity outfits.

SFR, acquired by Altice almost a decade ago, is the number two operator in Frande behind Orange. However Altice France carries debt to the tune of €23.8 billion out of a total group debt of about €60 billion.

SFR saw telecom revenue decline by 2.5% in the second quarter and total revenue declined by 2.6% to €2.789 billion.

Telecom EBITDA fell by 5.4% and total EBITDA fell by 5.7% to €1.084 billion.

At the end of June the company had 33.9 million addressable fibre homes (via FTTH or FTTB), up 1.2 million homes from Q1.

Other options believed to be advancing include the openly mooted sale of data centres and the reported possible sale of the scandal-hit, but operationally more successful, Portuguese operation, Meo.