Altice Sells Half of SFR FTTH to Private Equity

In a widely anticipated deal, Altice Europe has sold off a stake in its French FTTH business for €1.8B in cash. The consortium doing the buying is led by OMERS Infrastructure and includes Allianz Capital Partners, and AXA IM – Assets.  The consortium will own a 49.99% stake in SFR FTTH, valuing the wholesale operator at some €3.6B.

SFR FTTH is an alternative fiber-to-the-home network that is expected to pass 1M homes by the end of this year with 5M planned over the next few years. Altice will keep its majority share in the company and will be providing technical services for the construction and operation of the network.

The sale enables Altice Europe to further deleverage itself and thus free up more financial resources for its infrastructure investments. The company’s billionaire protagonist majority owner, Patrick Drahi, has been under pressure to turn things around.  Earlier this year he split Altice’s US and Europe divisions.  Since then, Altice Europe has already sold chunks of its tower businesses to private equity and unloaded its wholesale voice business to Tofane Global.

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Categories: FTTH · Mergers and Acquisitions