Telecoms holding Altice has started buying an extra 34.6% stake in French cableco Numericable from its private equity partners, as announced in early April.
Carlyle and Cinven are both divesting themselves of their remaining shares in the cable…
Telecoms holding Altice has started buying an extra 34.6% stake in French cableco Numericable from its private equity partners, as announced in early April.
Carlyle and Cinven are both divesting themselves of their remaining shares in the cable operator. They had already sold a combined 10% holding to Altice soon after Numericable was listed in a US$750m IPO last November.
Out of the 34.6% to be bought by the holding, around 20.6% will be exchanged for Altice shares.
Altice is issuing just under 25 million new ordinary shares on Euronext Amsterdam today, which will be subscribed for by Carlyle and Cinven. As a result, Carlyle will own 6.7% of Altice and Cinven 3.3%. The share price has not been disclosed but Altice earlier indicated that this portion of the deal would be around €800m (US$1.07bn).
The remaining 14% Numericable stake will be paid in cash for around €500m (US$672m).
Following these two transactions, Altice will see its interest in the cableco increase from 40% to 74.6%. Most of the remaining shares are in free float and the holding has already been granted a waiver from the obligation to launch a tender offer for the common stock.
Altice and Numericable recently agreed to buy French mobile operator SFR in a €13.5bn deal. The cableco and wireless player are expected to be merged to create a converged entity in which Altice will own a 60% stake.
Vivendi, the current owner of SFR, will initially keep a 20% stake in the combined company, which will be publicly-listed after the integration of SFR into Numericable. The remaining 20% will be in free float.
