About two weeks after a Bloomberg report that said Altice USA had hired investment banker Goldman Sachs to seek a buyer for its Suddenlink systems, company CEO Dexter Goei confirmed that a sales process is “going on,” but declined to offer more details.
Suddenlink has about 1.8 million subscribers in 17 states in the Midwest, south and western parts of the country. Altice is also in the process of rebranding the Suddenlink systems under its Optimum brand.
Goei’s confirmation came during a conference call with analysts to discuss Q2 results.
News of the sales process confirmation drove Altice USA stock -- which had been down about 2% in after-hours trading earlier -- up nearly 9% to $10.50 each in after-hours trading.
“We can confirm there is a process going on,” Goei said on the call. “I don’t think we want to comment any further than that, much like we did when there was a lot of chatter around Lightpath. We’ll update you and the rest of the market when we deem it appropriate to update. But at this time there is nothing further to talk about.”
Altice sold a 49% interest in its Lightpath telecom unit in December 2020 to Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners in a deal with an implied value of $3.2 billion.
The value of Suddenlink would depend on the buyer. While Bloomberg had said the systems could sell for as much as $20 billion, implying a deal multiple of 14 times cash flow, many believe the systems would sell for less.
Goie said the company has “received a lot of reverse inquiries for all or parts of the Suddenlink assets” but declined to speculate on potential buyers or prices.
“I don't think we want to get into a debate,” as far as the financials or operations of the systems, Goei said. “The numbers have been out there historically on the assets, so you can probably figure out what the numbers look like.” ■
