Altice in Advanced Talks to Buy Cable Company Suddenlink
European telecom firm is also eyeing Time Warner Cable
Cable tycoon John Malone’s plans to consolidate the fragmented U.S. industry could run into competition from an unlikely player: telecommunications group Altice SA.
The company controlled by French cable investor Patrick Drahi is in advanced talks to acquire U.S. cable operator Suddenlink Communications in a deal that would be valued at $8 billion to $10 billion including debt and could be announced as soon as this week, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Separately, Altice is eyeing Time Warner Cable Inc., the No. 2 U.S. cable operator by subscribers, people familiar with the situation said. Altice has made initial contact with TWC.
Combined, the moves show the deal-hungry European company’s appetite for a major cross-border expansion. And they add another dimension to the complex drama playing out in the U.S. cable industry, bringing a new player into the race to consolidate the sector.
Mr. Malone has been a vocal proponent of consolidation and has pursued those ambitions through his investment in Charter Communications Inc., the fourth-largest operator. Charter is seeking a deal with Time Warner Cable, whose $45.2 billion merger with Comcast Corp. fell apart last month, and also is in talks with closely-held Bright House Networks.
Altice is a Luxembourg-based cable-and-telecom company with a market value of €28.7 billion ($32 billion).
By buying St. Louis-based Suddenlink, Altice would get access to about 1.5 million customers in more than a dozen states from Texas to West Virginia. Suddenlink is the seventh-largest U.S. cable operator by video customers and had revenue of $2.3 billion last year. Suddenlink Chief Executive Jerry Kent, a cable-industry veteran, founded the company early in the last decade and built it up by purchasing cable systems from rivals including Cox Communications Inc. and Charter.
Suddenlink is majority-owned by private-equity firm BC Partners and a Canadian pension fund, who bought it in 2012 in a deal valued at $6.6 billion, including debt.
There is no guarantee the Suddenlink talks won’t fall apart before a deal is reached. No deal with TWC is imminent and any transaction would only happen after a deal with Suddenlink, one of the people familiar with the situation said.
Time Warner Cable, with a $44.5 billion market capitalization, would be a much bigger deal for Altice to digest. The company operates in big city markets including New York and Los Angeles and has nearly 11 million residential cable TV customers. It attracted interest from Charter soon after Comcast terminated its deal with TWC in the face of stiff regulatory resistance.
A deal of such size could be challenging for Altice to pull off financially. Altice has made a name for itself with its record leveraged buyouts last year. The company had net debt of €18.78 billion at the end of the first quarter. Still, Altice believes it could raise enough cash to afford a bid for Time Warner Cable, a person familiar with the matter said.
Mr. Drahi, 51 years old, has made a fortune by investing in underperforming cable companies. Buying into the U.S. would catapult Altice, which now owns communications companies from France to the Caribbean, into one of the world’s largest cable and broadband markets. Mr. Drahi has been betting that the future of the telecom industry lies in combining cable and broadband operators with mobile companies to offer clients higher-priced bundles combining television, broadband, fixed telephony and mobile services.
Entering the U.S. would make Mr. Drahi a direct competitor to Mr. Malone, whose career has served as a model in Mr. Drahi’s expansion over the past decades.
Altice has other ties to Mr. Malone: Dexter Goei, the chief executive of Altice, was a member of the slate of directors Charter nominated to replace Time Warner Cable’s board early last year, during its hostile attempt to take over TWC. That effort was headed off when Comcast struck its ill-fated TWC deal.
A foreign player acquiring U.S. cable companies would require approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. Such a deal would also require approval from the Federal Communications Commission and could be subject to antitrust review from the Justice Department.
Mr. Drahi is the second French telecom billionaire to attempt to venture into the U.S. in less than a year. Last summer, rival Xavier Niel with his low-cost operator Iliad SA made a bid to buy U.S. carrier T-Mobile U.S., but his offer was rebuffed.
Altice has been searching for assets to buy in the U.S. for some time and has looked at several potential targets, other people familiar with the matter said.
Mr. Drahi over the past year has emerged as one of the most aggressive deal-makers in a fragmented European telecom market.
In April last year, Altice won a hard-fought takeover battle to buy French cellphone carrier SFR in a $23 billion deal. Only a few months later, the company agreed to buy former Portuguese telecom monopoly PT Portugal for around $9 billion.