L'action Altice USA/Optimum Commuications avait chuté à 0.66$ fin Mai, mais a soudainement rebondi de 70% le 1er Juin. Pourquoi ? Altice USA a annoncé lundi matin qu'il lançait un programme de rachat de ses actions à 2.50$/action, soit près de 4 fois celui de la dernière quotation ! De quoi évidemment faire se rapprocher le cours du prix de rachat. Il annonce racheter jusqu'à 300 M$ d'actions.
Avec quels moyens ? C'est le résultat d'une nouvelle acrobatie financière de Patrick Drahi, qui a repris ses recettes de l'Europe, et a engagé un nouveau combat avec ses créanciers (Altice USA a 24 milliards de dollars de dettes), et a déjà déposé plainte contre eux qui ont formé comme en France un consortium pour parler d'une seule voix devant Altice).
Altice USA a mis ses activités de la côte Est, et 50.01% du capital de Lighpath, sa filiale fibre optique, générant une grande part de son chiffre d'affaires, 2 milliards de dollars dans une nouvelle holding indépendante; à l'abri de ses créanciers. Cela rappelle ce qu'il avait en France avec Alice Media, UltraEdge (ses datacenters dont 70% ont été vendus...). Il en a profité pour les mettre en garantie d'un nouvel emprunt de 500 M$, 200 M$ étant donc utilisés pour le rachat d'actions...
Évidemment, cela n'a pas plu à ses créanciers...
Voir le CP d'Altice USA/Optimum :
Optimum Launches Effort to Drive a Consensual Repositioning of its Capital Structure
June 01, 2026 8:00am EDT
The latest moves follow a similar playbook to that employed by Patrick Drahi at his global business, Altice International
- Optimum forms new unrestricted subsidiary to hold the Optimum East Cable business and Optimum’s 50.01% stake in Lightpath, and implements internal reorganization to make the new holdco group financially and operationally independent from its parent, CSC Holdings
- New unrestricted holdco raises $500 million of capital by privately placing $300 million of preferred units with leading third-party institutional investors and exchanging $200 million of preferred units for Optimum common stock held by Optimum’s controlling stockholder, Next Alt S.à r.l., at $2.50 per share
- New unrestricted holdco concurrently commences cash tender offer for up to $300 million of Optimum common stock held by its public stockholders at $2.50 per share
- Optimum announces strategic priorities and new long-range plan
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https://investors.optimum.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/233/optimum-launches-effort-to-drive-a-consensual-repositioningEt l'article à ce sujet du Financial Times :
Patrick Drahi’s indebted US cable group escalates fight with creditors
Optimum Communications transfers its most valuable US pay-TV and broadband assets out of reach
Sujeet Indap in New York - 4/06/206
Patrick Drahi’s indebted US cable company has shifted its most valuable pay-TV and broadband assets outside the reach of creditors, an aggressive move likely to inflame tensions with some of Wall Street’s biggest asset managers.
The manoeuvre is the latest escalation of a bitter fight between the billionaire’s US vehicle Optimum Communications and creditors including Apollo, Ares, Oaktree and BlackRock, as Optimum seeks to restructure its $25bn debt pile.
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Under the transactions announced on Monday, Optimum has transferred assets that generate about $2bn a year of cash flow to a newly created entity, known as an “unrestricted holdco”, even as the pre-existing group grapples with $6bn of debt due next year.
Those transfers cover Cablevision assets bought from the Dolan family in 2016, which operate across New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The Cablevision acquisition and other deals left Optimum with an unsustainable debt load at a time when cable television subscriptions were quickly declining.
The new entity has raised $3bn of senior debt from JPMorgan Chase and $300mn of junior preferred equity from investors outside the existing Optimum creditor group.
It will use those funds to back a tender offer for about a third of Optimum shares at $2.50 a share — almost four times where its shares closed on Friday. Based on Friday’s closing price, the company’s equity was worth just above $200mn. As part of the deal, Drahi and other executives will swap some of their Optimum shares for preferred stock in the new entity worth $200mn.
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https://www.ft.com/content/7d0b35ea-e063-4603-ba08-2722caa22904?syn-25a6b1a6=1