Altice International - comment

Altice International creditor group, including Arini, Silver Point, King Street, Sona, Diameter and Invesco, is turning aggressive, as it prepares to litigate against the company and seek preferential treatment in any restructuring. If Elliott joins, the group would represent c.60% of secured debt, threatening those outside the litigation group with materially lower non-pro rata recoveries. The dispute centres on two related drop-down (up) actions by Altice: First, creditors allege that Altice moved around €5bn of intercompany loans to other entities within the wider group, effectively transferring value away from the restricted group and the creditors’ reach. Second, in December 2025, Altice moved its Portugal and Dominican Republic operations out of the restricted group and designated them as “unrestricted” subsidiaries. These businesses represented around 80% of Altice International’s results and had previously provided security for more than €8bn of debt; as unrestricted subsidiaries, they are no longer subject to the same creditor protections and can raise debt, sell assets or upstream value without creditor consent.

The reported restricted group results are increasingly nonsensical from a credit perspective, now effectively comprising only the Israeli assets, with Q2 revenue of just €285m and EBITDA of €88m. More importantly, the majority of these remaining assets are themselves earmarked for disposal, with HOT Mobile already under an agreed sale for NIS 1.22bn. In the wider context of this LME, these assets can at best serve as downside protection and considering the history so far, we can't even count on that.