Les Echos : CGG : Jean-Georges Malcor : « Un rejet du plan de sauvetage de CGG c

Jean-Georges Malcor : « Un rejet du plan de sauvetage de CGG conduirait au redressement judiciaire »

Les actionnaires du spécialiste français de la sismique pour l'exploration pétrolière doivent donner leur feu vert au plan de sauvetage financier mardi.

Vous êtes assurés du soutien des deux plus gros actionnaires à l'assemblée générale. La restructuration financière est-elle certaine d'être approuvée ?
Non. L'assemblée générale reste une étape très importante pour l'avenir du groupe. Le soutien de Bpifrance et de DNCA est une très bonne nouvelle mais le plan de sauvegarde doit être approuvé par au moins 66 % des actionnaires présents. Il nous faut les convaincre qu'il s'agit du seul chemin possible, même s'il est douloureux.

Que se passerait-il si l'assemblée générale ne donnait pas son feu vert mardi ?
Nous nous retrouverions immédiatement en crise de liquidités et la continuité d'exploitation de l'entreprise ne serait plus assurée. On entrerait dans une période de très grande incertitude. Aux Etats-Unis, nos créanciers pourraient appeler les garanties données sur nos 14 filiales américaines, autrement dit prendre possession de nos principaux actifs américains, ce qui équivaudrait à un quasi-démantèlement de CGG. Quant à nos clients et nos salariés, leur confiance dans l'avenir du groupe serait sérieusement compromise.

Vous pourriez alors négocier un autre plan de restructuration financière avec vos créanciers...
Cela ne serait pas réaliste. Il nous a déjà fallu plus de neuf mois pour aboutir à la solution actuelle. Nous n'aurions pas le temps de repartir à zéro, étant donné les échéances de dette auxquelles nous sommes confrontés. Un rejet du plan nous forcerait très probablement à nous placer en redressement judiciaire.

Pouvez-vous garantir à vos actionnaires et créanciers que vous n'aurez pas besoin de lever des fonds supplémentaires ?
Oui. L'injection de 500 millions de dollars de cash nous met à l'abri de scénarios pessimistes dans lesquels les cours du pétrole stagneraient aux alentours de 50 à 55 dollars le baril jusqu'en 2019. Même dans ce cas, nous serions en mesure de servir les intérêts de notre dette une fois qu'elle sera restructurée, qui représenteront environ 85 millions de dollars par an. Notre plan d'affaires est bâti sur une restructuration industrielle terminée et qui s'est traduite par le départ de la moitié de nos effectifs . Il est aussi fondé sur des hypothèses économiques prudentes de remontée progressive des cours du baril entre 60 et 65 dollars d'ici deux ans.


Ces hypothèses ne sont-elles pas trop optimistes ? Le baril s'échange actuellement à moins de 55 dollars.
Nous pensons qu'elles sont raisonnables. Le rebond est inéluctable, même s'il ne sera pas aussi fort que par le passé. Les réserves mondiales de pétrole diminuent au rythme de 5 % par an alors que la demande progresse. Les compagnies pétrolières devront relever leurs investissements dans l'exploration. Contraints et forcés, CGG et l'ensemble de l'industrie parapétrolière ont fait des gains de productivité colossaux qui nous permettront de bénéficier pleinement de la reprise.

Les prix se sont effondrés dans l'un de vos grands métiers, l'acquisition de données sismiques pour l'exploration pétrolière...
Ils ont en effet été divisés par plus de deux. Ils sont désormais stabilisés, à un niveau très bas qui ne nous permet pas de couvrir nos coûts cash, malgré la restructuration massive que nous avons opérée. Nous n'avons plus que cinq bateaux, contre 23 au pic en 2013. Nous prévoyons une remontée des prix comprise entre 5 et 10 % au cours des deux prochaines années. Cela nous permettrait au moins de couvrir les coûts cash de nos navires. En tout état de cause nous avons fortement réduit notre exposition sur ce segment.

Les perspectives sont-elles meilleures dans vos autres métiers ?
La dynamique est très différente pour le traitement des données sismiques et les études multi-clients. Les volumes de commandes de nos clients ont chuté, mais dans des proportions moindres, et nous sommes numéro un mondial, au coude-à-coude avec Schlumberger. Dans les équipements également, nous restons à la première place avec une forte base installée.. Nous n'avons pas perdu de parts de marché dans ces trois métiers car beaucoup de petits concurrents ont disparu ou ont fortement réduit la voilure pendant la crise. Nous sommes bien placés pour profiter de la reprise.

Quelles sont vos prévisions financières pour les deux années à venir ?
Nous prévoyons un chiffre d'affaires étale cette année, puis une nette remontée en 2018 et 2019. Nos revenus devraient avoisiner deux milliards de dollars à cet horizon (contre 1,2 milliard en 2016 et 2017), avec une marge d'Ebitda d'au moins 37,5 % (contre 27 % l'an dernier). Cela peut sembler optimiste, mais en réalité nous ne ferions que retrouver notre niveau de chiffre d'affaires de 2015, et nous resterions toujours en fort retrait par rapport à des revenus qui atteignaient 3,8 milliards en 2013.

En savoir plus sur https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/energie-environnement/030783600074-jean-georges-malcor-un-rejet-du-plan-de-sauvetage-de-cgg-conduirait-au-redressement-judiciaire-2125147.php#Ds4dRQfTJVXJ43Kw.99

>>> Unilever takes CD&R/Bain, Apollo and KKR to second round of spreads sale

MERGERMARKET

Unilever takes CD&R/Bain, Apollo and KKR to second round of spreads sale
25 OCT 2017
The auction of Anglo-Dutch consumer goods group Unilever's[LON: ULVR]; [AMS:UNA] spreads business entered the second round yesterday. Private equity firms KKR [NYSE:KKR] and Apollo are through, as well as a CD&R-Bainconsortium, two sources familiar with the situation said.
Other bidders including a Blackstone-CVC consortium, as well as BC Partners did not progress further, the sources said. The sale is run as a dual-track process, one of them added.
The Financial Times, reporting on the private equity firms making it to the next round, said KKR had been considering a bid with Singapore wealth fund GIC. A report by Reuters also mentioned the buyout firms invited to round two and said the USD 7bn sale could be finalised by the end of this year.
Information on the sale is limited so far, but the company is projecting an EBITDA and sales decline in the next couple of years. However, as a standalone business, it expects both earnings and revenues to increase, according to two further sources familiar with the situation.
EBITDA would drop to EUR 632m in 2017 from EUR 685m in 2016, but pro-forma for the carveout it is projected to grow to EUR 740m in 2017, EUR 747m in 2018 and EUR 766m in 2019, said the sources.
IMs were distributed end of September, as reported.
In April, Unilever finance director Graeme Pitkethly reportedly said that Unilever would consider selling its South African and North American spreads business separately from other units in its spreads division.
Unilever CEO Paul Polman announced plans to sell the margarine spreads business in April, as reported. The spreads business includes Flora, Stork, Country Crock and other slow-growing brands.
Acuris, owner of this news service, is a BC Partners portfolio company.
Apollo, Blackstone, CVC, CD&R and Bain declined to comment. Other companies did not respond to a request for comment.

WP : ‘Dangerous,’ ‘utterly untruthful’: Two retiring GOP senators sound alarm on

‘Dangerous,’ ‘utterly untruthful’: Two retiring GOP senators sound alarm on Trump

A pair of Republican senators sounded an alarm Tuesday about President Trump’s fitness for office and warned that his actions were degrading and dangerous to the country — an extraordinary breach that threatens his legislative agenda and further escalates the civil war tearing apart the Republican Party.

Delivering an emotional speech on the Senate floor announcing that he will not seek reelection next year, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said Trump’s behavior is “dangerous to our democracy” and summoned fellow Republicans to denounce the president’s conduct.

“It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end,” Flake said. He added, “Politics can make us silent when we should speak, and silence can equal complicity.”

The charged remarks from Flake — a totem of traditional conservatism who has repeatedly spoken out about his isolation in Trump’s GOP — came hours after Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) questioned the president’s stability and competence, reigniting a deeply personal feud with the president.


Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who also will not run for reelection in 2018, told reporters in assessing Trump’s nine-month tenure: “I’ve seen no evolution in an upward way. As a matter of fact, it seems to me it’s almost devolving.”

Play Video 1:41
Corker says Trump will be remembered for 'the debasement of our nation'
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) again harshly criticized President Trump's effectiveness and character ahead of a lunch with Senate Republicans on Oct. 24. (Jordan Frasier/The Washington Post)
With their distress calls, Flake and Corker joined a chorus of mainstream political leaders newly emboldened to excoriate Trump. Last week, former presidents George W. Bush, a Republican, and Barack Obama, a Democrat, both indirectly rebuked Trump’s deportment and warned of peril for the nation under his watch, as did Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who thundered about the rise of what he called “half-baked, spurious nationalism.”

In his first response, Trump fired back with tweets early Wednesday characterizing Flake and Corker as bitter GOP outsiders who had “zero chance” of reelection. Trump also pointed to what he called a “love fest with standing ovations” by other Republican senators at a meeting Tuesday to discuss the party’s tax plan.


“The reason Flake and Corker dropped out of the Senate race is very simple, they had zero chance of being elected. Now act so hurt & wounded!” Trump wrote.

The raw candor from two retiring senators came on a day when Trump made a rare trip to the Capitol for an intended show of party unity, lunching privately with Republican senators to rally support for his plan to cut taxes.

For a Republican Party that has been riven by internal turmoil for nearly a decade, the Flake-Corker rupture with Trump exacerbated the ferocious war between the party’s seasoned leaders and its anti-establishment forces, now rallying under the banner of Trumpism. Polls show that the overwhelming majority of Republican voters back Trump, and the fact that two of the president’s most vocal critics in the Senate are retiring underscores how dangerous it is for politicians seeking reelection to break with the president and risk the wrath of his loyal supporters.

[Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona will retire, citing direction of GOP under Trump]

Flake’s 18-minute speech was perhaps the most sweeping indictment of Trump delivered by a Republican to date. Flake, 54, spoke with bewilderment and sadness, his voice cracking at times, about what he viewed as the withering of morality and civility in the national dialogue.

What Flake's retirement means for the Senate in 2018 VIEW GRAPHIC
“We must never regard as normal the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals,” Flake said. “We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country — the personal attacks; the threats against principles, freedoms and institutions; the flagrant disregard for truth and decency.”


Flake added: “We must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal. Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as ‘telling it like it is’ when it is actually just reckless, outrageous and undignified.”

Some Republican elder statesmen who have been highly critical of Trump celebrated Flake’s remarks and called on other elected Republicans to further distance the party from the president.

“Am I concerned about what we are supposed to do for the next three-plus years with this man in the White House? Yes, I’m very concerned,” said John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “But the best I can think of right now is simply making it clear to the American people that the Republican Party is what it has been in the past, and that is not Donald Trump.”

Still, Danforth said he is concerned that by giving up their seats, Flake and Corker are “leaving the field open” to insurgent candidates inspired by former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who is leading a rebellion against establishment Republicans.


Already, a crop of Bannon-inspired conservative outsiders is emerging nationally. From Alabama to Mississippi to Nevada, these contenders are hoping to disrupt the 2018 midterm elections. They could determine whether the GOP maintains its narrow majorities in the Senate and the House — and whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) hold their leadership positions.

Bannon claimed victory with Flake’s departure. “Many more to come,” he predicted in a text message to The Washington Post.

Andy Surabian, a Bannon associate who advises Great America Alliance, a pro-Trump political group, said: “This is a victory for President Trump and all of his supporters across the nation. Jeff Flake was America’s top ‘Never Trumper,’ so getting his scalp is a signal to Never Trumpers everywhere that their time is up.”

[’The president’s wingman’: Absent in the West Wing, Bannon stays close to Trump]

At the White House, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Flake’s and Corker’s comments were “petty” and suggested that they were retiring because they could not win reelection. She boasted from the briefing room lectern that Trump was more popular in Arizona and Tennessee, both states he carried in 2016, than the two departing senators.

“The voters of these individual senators’ states are speaking in pretty loud volumes,” Sanders said. “I think that they were not likely to be reelected, and I think that shows that the support is more behind this president than it is those two individuals.”

At the Capitol, meanwhile, Republican leaders reacted cautiously Tuesday, eager to offer support to their colleagues but fearful of breaking their fragile bonds with a president who has been quick to explode at personal slights.

Following Flake on the Senate floor, McConnell thanked him “for the opportunity to listen to his remarks” and honored the Arizonan, whom he called “a very fine man, a man who clearly brings high principles to the office every day.”

Tuesday’s thunderclap exposed the threadbare relationship Trump has with the GOP. At the closed-door lunch, Trump received a standing ovation from Republican senators. Yet for months, many of these lawmakers privately have seethed at the president’s actions and language, as Flake and Corker did publicly in concluding that Trump is an unstable presence in American political life.

“This is the ice beginning to crack,” said Peter Wehner, a Trump critic who has advised several past Republican presidents. “This is an extraordinary moment because the members of the president’s own party know that he is not fit in some fundamental way to be the president. These views that they’ve kept in the shadows are now being exposed to the light.”

Democrats balked at the notion that Republicans were somehow unsullied because two GOP senators rapped Trump.

“Unfortunately, Republicans in Congress remain in lockstep with the Trump agenda and silent in the face of the president’s disgraceful behavior,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said in a statement.

[The great dealmaker? Lawmakers find Trump to be an untrustworthy negotiator.]

Flake’s Tuesday speech was the surprise culmination of more than a year of simmering criticism of Trump and the direction the party has taken under him. Flake published a best-selling book this summer, “Conscience of a Conservative,” that chastised the president’s character and ideology, stunning his colleagues and stoking Trump’s anger. The president vowed to work to defeat him if he sought reelection in 2018.

Recent polls showed Flake trailing the leading Democratic Senate candidate, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), as well as potential primary rivals.

The emerging Republican field is robust and includes Kelli Ward, a former Arizona state senator and hard-line conservative known for incendiary statements. Several members of the state’s congressional delegation, including Reps. Martha McSally and David Schweikert, are also considering bids, according to Arizona Republicans.

Flake said Tuesday that he was not comfortable making the policy concessions on issues such as trade and immigration — or withholding criticisms of Trump’s behavior — that he felt he would have to make to satisfy Republican primary voters galvanized by anger and grievance.

“Sustained incumbency is certainly not the point of seeking office, and there are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles,” Flake said. “Now is such a time.”

Flake, who once ran the Goldwater Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Phoenix and named for the late Republican senator Barry Goldwater, won a seat in the House in 2000 and served there for a dozen years before being elected to the Senate in 2012.

As he spoke on the Senate floor, a handful of colleagues from both parties sat grimly across the chamber. When he concluded, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), a sometime critic of Trump, clapped loudly, prompting others to stand and applaud.

McCain spoke a few minutes later and called his colleague “a man of integrity and honor and decency and commitment,” saying Flake’s service to the country is “one of honor, of brilliance and patriotism and love of country.”

Asked later by reporters if he thought other senators should speak in the same terms about Trump as Flake had, McCain demurred. “It’s up to every senator,” he said. “It’s not up to me.”

[’Utterly untruthful’: Corker unbound as he attacks Trump over fitness, competence]

Corker unburdened himself Tuesday of his feelings about Trump — first in a trio of television morning show interviews, then in a tweet and then in a hallway gaggle with reporters.

Corker said Trump was “utterly untruthful” and called him “the L-word”; expressed hope that he would stand down to let Congress formulate a tax plan without him; said he should “leave it to the professionals” to handle the North Korea nuclear crisis; said he was not a role model for children; and urged West Wing aides to “figure out ways of controlling him.” Corker also said he would not support Trump for election again.

The succession of brittle comments seemed to enrage Trump, who responded with several tweets, calling the short-statured senator “liddle” and “a lightweight,” as well as “incompetent.”


Republican leaders were also swift to dismiss Corker’s comments as mere distractions, insistent upon showcasing party cohesion despite the evident disorder.

“All this stuff you see on a daily basis — Twitter this and Twitter that? Forget about it,” Ryan told reporters.

“There’s a lot of noise out there,” McConnell said. “We have a First Amendment in this country; everybody gets to express themselves. But what we’re concentrating on is the agenda the American people need.”

>>> US Gapping up


Gapping up
In reaction to strong earnings/guidance:

  • APOP +25.4%, CAPR +18.6%, AKAM +8.5%, MDCO +8.1%, IRBT +5.6%, USNA +4.5%, WBA +4.4%, MKSI +4.3%, KRA +4.1%, LPL +4.1%, RES +3.5%, RGC +3.4%, BTI +3.1%, (provides update to outlook at its Capital Markets Day), TUP +3%, NOC +2.9%, TSS +2.7%, OFG +2.5%, FLIR +2.5%, AMED +2.4%, WB +2.3%, (also commences $700 mln offering of convertible senior notes due 2022 ), ILMN +2%, COF +1.9%, LYG +1.7%, HES +1.7%, SIX +1.5%, VNOM +1.4%, BXMT +1.4%, SIRI +1.4%, AVY +1.1%, CNI +1%, NUVA +1%, CEO +0.8%, AOS +0.8%, BAX +0.6%

M&A news:

  • S +1.4% (T-Mobile US and Sprint (S) are preparing Boards for merger decision, according to Reuters)

Other news:

  • BONT +21.2% (after closing near highs on credit facility update)
  • OSTK +4.4% (extending today's move higher after confirming key details on tZERO's ICO at Money 20/20 )
  • LL +4.4% (disclosed memorandum of understanding to settle class actions related to Chinese-Laminate flooring )
  • SENS +3.3% (continued strength)
  • ANTM +2.8% (announces that the Co has successfully activated fifteen clinical trial sites in the pivotal Phase 3 SIERRA trial for Iomab-B)
  • MZOR +2.3% (reports 379-Patient controlled study also reveals seven-fold reduction in revision surgery)
  • AMC +1.4% (following RGC results)
  • TNDM +1.1% (to make any new features approved for the t:slim X2 Insulin Pump by the FDA in 2018 available to all in-warranty users at no cost through the Tandem Device Updater )
  • VRAY +0.9% (raised approx $50 mln through offering)

Analyst comments:

  • ALDX +4.8% (initiated with a Overweight at Cantor Fitzgerald)
  • ILMN +2% (upgraded to Outperform at Robert W. Baird)
  • LDOS +1.4% (upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo)
  • UAL +1% (upgraded to Outperform at Evercore ISI)

>>> US Gapping down



Gapping down
In reaction to disappointing earnings/guidance:

  • ACHC -22.3%, AMD -10.7%, CMG -10.6%, MANH -9.9%, GHM -8.5%, JNPR -6.7%, EW -6.3%, VICR -6.3%, DPS -5.1%, SFLY -3.6%, NBR -3.4%, EXP -3.3%, DFS -3.1%, WYN -2.3%, AMX -2.1%, T -2%, TXN -1.7%, OC -1.6%, ESRX -1.4%, ROL -1.1%

Other news:

  • SNSS -13.5% (commences offering of common stock and Series D Convertible Preferred Stock)
  • SVRA -11% (commences common stock offering; size not disclosed; anounces its indication expansion strategy of its lead product candidate Molgradex for the treatment of nontuberculous mycobacterial lung infection; plans to initiate a Phase 2a multi-center clinical trial in subjects with antibiotic-resistant NTM lung infection in early 2018)
  • HCM -9.4% (to offer $262.0 million of ADS's, each representing one-half of one ordinary share )
  • IDRA -8.7% ( commences $60 mln common stock offering)
  • SALT -7.8% (commences 10 mln common stock offering )
  • BIOA -6.5% (accepted the resignation of Pres/COO Fabrice Orecchioni; will be assuming advisory role through to February 24, 2018)
  • SACH -6% (prices 3.75 mln common stock offering at $4.00/share)
  • PFLT -4.5% (to make a public offering of 6,000,000 shares of its common stock )
  • ATNM -4.1% ( indicated lower after filing for $200 mln mixed securities shelf offering and $75 mln ATM under 424B3)
  • IMDZ -1.1% (prices 18.5 mln shares of common stock at $4.10 per share)
  • NVDA -0.5% (following AMD results)

Analyst comments:

  • RCII -5.3% (downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital Markets)
  • PII -1.7% (downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital Markets)
  • GM -1.7% (downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley)
  • HBI -1% (downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Wells Fargo)
  • NVS -0.5% (downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Barclays)