Altice France liabilities add about €1bn to debt pile
Rival telecoms groups are considering new bid for Patrick Drahi’s French business
Altice France’s total indebtedness is more than €1bn higher than stated in last year’s sweeping restructuring due to additional liabilities, as rival telecoms groups consider a new joint bid.
Total debts and liabilities at the company, controlled by billionaire Patrick Drahi, amount to about €17bn, according to four people with knowledge of the details.
Altice France had announced that its restructuring, completed in October, would cut consolidated net debt to about €15.5bn from €24bn. At quarterly earnings to the end of September 2025, the company reported total net debt of €16bn.
The people said the differences were mainly because of Altice’s use of financial products related to supplier payments and asset securitisation. Quarterly accounts show liabilities including reverse factoring — a type of supply chain financing — and securitisation totalling €772mn as of the end of September 2025. Accounting standards do not always require companies to classify these line items as debt.
Altice France began due diligence at the start of the year with a consortium of three rival French telecoms operators — Bouygues, Iliad and Orange — who are negotiating a joint bid for the bulk of the business, including mobile operator SFR.
An earlier offer by the same consortium with an enterprise value of €17bn was rejected by Drahi in October as too low.
A new bid for Altice France has yet to materialise because of the complexity of splitting the business between three rival operators and agreeing a price, the people said. The company’s debt and liabilities add to those complications, they added.
Any potential deal would face tough scrutiny by competition regulators in Brussels and Paris, who have a history of opposing consolidation in the sector without significant remedies.
Drahi built his telecoms empire using vast amounts of debt at a time when interest rates were at record lows. However, as rates have risen, that debt has become increasingly unsustainable.
Altice France has struggled as sales and earnings have fallen. However, Drahi was allowed to retain control in the restructuring by creditors in order to negotiate a sale. Separate restructuring negotiations with creditors are under way at Altice USA, the only part of Drahi’s sprawling business that is listed, and are expected to begin at Altice International.
The Altice France negotiations are also seeking to agree terms for liability clauses demanded by Drahi to compensate him if the deal is blocked on competition grounds, the people said.
The consortium meanwhile is seeking legal protection against potential tax and legal liabilities, including possible liabilities linked to ongoing criminal investigations of Drahi’s former right-hand man Armando Pereira, two of the people said.
There is time pressure to secure an agreement as the business struggles and Altice France faces substantial debt repayments starting in 2028.
Four people with knowledge of the situation said that if the company failed to secure a deal either with the consortium or to sell smaller parts of the business such as its broadband network XpFibre, Altice France would be back in restructuring within 18 months.
Another person familiar with the details disputed this, saying that if a wider deal is not possible, Altice can sell off assets piecemeal. The person added that the business was sustainable after the restructuring.
Two people involved in the talks with French telecoms operators said that if there was no deal by spring, the negotiations would be likely to falter. “If in April we can’t find a deal, no deal is possible,” one of the people said.
But one of the other people said the complexity of the deal meant no timeline could be set for a potential agreement.
Altice France, Iliad, Bouygues and Orange declined to comment.