TheChek News Flow

- euro area economy is on a path of gradual recovery 

New York City has accepted that it cannot stop Altice from buying Cablevision, a source close to the situation told The Post.

The city has recently determined that former Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave away its authority in cable mergers to the state, the source said.

The Netherlands-based business met in the last few weeks with Mayor de Blasio’s counsel Maya Wiley to hammer out a deal, the source said.

An Altice meeting is planned in coming days with Public Advocate Letitia James, the source said.

City approval may be coming at its May 9 Department of Information Technology meeting.

The State’s Department of Public Service Commission is set to approve the deal later in May, as is the Federal Communications Commission.

James has publicly questioned the November $18 billion deal alleging it will leave the company with too much debt.

“The new Cablevision will lack the capital to make robust investments in much needed broadband infrastructure, or enhance customer service.”

Cablevision presently serves 2 million Bronx customers, and 1.4 million in Brooklyn.

While Altice’s deal is nearing city approval, its French cable company, Numericable-SFR, agreement to buy some of Bouygues Telecom’s assets fell through earlier this month causing Altice’s shares to drop by more than 10 percent.

Altice has agreed to pay $34.90 in cash for Cablevision. The target’s shares closed Thursday at $32.95.

Wiley told The Post, “The City’s review and approval authority over the Altice-Cablevision merger is clear.”

“We want to make sure … a change in ownership does not mean that New Yorkers are shortchanged on quality of service, quality of infrastructure, consumer protection and jobs.”

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.