News
Cable group plans to list 46.6 million shares on New York Stock Exchange.
Altice USA this week launched a long-awaited initial public offering that could raise up to $1.44 billion.
The Netherlands-based cable group plans to list 46.55 million shares of its U.S. business on the New York Stock Exchange, priced between $27 and $31 each. The shares will list under the ‘ATUS’ symbol.
The company will offer three classes of Altice USA common stock: A, B, and C. Class A shares will carry a single voting right, while Class B shares will each have 25 voting rights. Class C shares will be non-voting.
In an SEC filing on Monday, Altice said it expects to receive net proceeds of $330.95 million, based on a share price of $29 – the middle of the range. It plans to use the funds to redeem some of the $2 billion in senior notes owed by its Cablevision unit.
Altice entered the U.S. in 2015 when it agreed to acquire Suddenlink for $9.1 billion. That was followed up by the $17.7 billion acquisition of Cablevision in 2016. Late last year, Altice USA unveiled its ‘Generation Gigaspeed’ strategy, a five-year plan to deploy fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) across its U.S. footprint.
In the three months to 31 March, Altice USA generated revenue of $2.31 billion, up slightly from $2.27 billion a year earlier. Operating income surged to $248.23 million from $84.22 million, while net loss narrowed to $76.19 million from $190.14 million.
At the end of March, Altice USA had 4.91 million individual customer relationships.
In May, Altice announced plans to adopt the Altice brand for its sprawling empire of cable and telco assets in a bid to maintain a consistent corporate culture.