Cinven sells residual stake in Altice
European private equity firm Cinven today announces that it fully realised its investment in Numericable with the sale of its remaining shareholding in Altice N.V. ("Altice") on 1 March 2016. This residual holding in Altice was a result of Cinven rolling part of its remaining stake in Numericable into Altice, the listed international media and telecom group and main shareholder of Numericable.
In 2005 and 2006, Cinven acquired 70% of Numericable, investing alongside Patrick Drahi's Altice, which owned the remaining 30%, for an enterprise value of EUR 528m. Following numerous acquisitions and transformational changes to the business, Numericable today has an enterprise value of around EUR 30bn.
This realisation is the culmination of an 11 year investment during which Cinven backed Patrick Drahi and Numericable to build it into the second largest French telecom group. As a result and in summary, Cinven has returned EUR 2.2bn to investors, representing a net capital gain of EUR 1.7bn, an internal rate of return (IRR) of 157% and a money multiple of 4.7 times.
Cinven's realisation strategy involved:
-- several recapitalisations and refinancings of the Group, including through the issuance of high yield bonds;
-- the partial sale of a 38% stake in Numericable to Carlyle in March 2008;
-- a highly successful IPO of Numericable on the NYSE Euronext Paris in November 2013, oversubscribed by over 10 times at the top end of the indicative price range;
-- the disposal of its remaining Numericable shareholding partly for cash and partly through a roll-over into Altice shares; and
-- the sell-down of its Altice shares.
Post IPO, Numericable and Altice generated total shareholder returns of 202% and 102%, respectively, from their IPOs to 1 March 2016.