Altice USA IPO Off to a Strong Start

By Chris Lange Updated Jan 12, 10:46AM EST · Published Jun 23, 6:25AM EDT

Altice USA IPO Off to a Strong Start — © Thinkstock

Altice USA Inc. (NYSE: ATUS) entered the market with a bang in its (IPO) initial public offering. The firm priced its 63.94 million shares at $30 per share (compared with expected price range of $27 to $31 per share), with an overallotment option for an additional 7.78 million shares. Keep in mind that these shares have moved hands. And shares actually entered the markets above the expected level at $31.60. At this price the entire offering is valued up to $2.15 billion.

Altice sold 12.07 million shares of its Class A common stock and the selling stockholders sold 51.87 million shares. BC Partners offered up approximately 31.48 million Class A shares, while Canada Pension Plan Investment Board sold roughly 20.40 million shares.

The underwriters for the offering are JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, Deutsche Bank Securities, RBC Capital Markets, Scotiabank, Societe Generale and TD Securities.

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This company is one of the largest broadband communications and video services providers in the United States. Altice delivers broadband, pay television, telephony services, Wi-Fi hotspot access, proprietary content and advertising services to approximately 4.9 million residential and business customers. Its footprint extends across 21 states through a fiber-rich broadband network with more than 8.5 million homes passed as of the end of March 2017.

Altice acquired Cequel (Suddenlink) back in December 2015 and Cablevision Systems (Optimum) in June 2016. The company serves customers through its two business segments: Optimum, which operates in the New York metropolitan area, and Suddenlink, which principally operates in markets in the south-central United States.

At the end of December 2016, Altice Group delivered broadband, pay television and telephony services to more than 50 million customers in Western Europe, the United States, Israel and the Caribbean, and it reported pro forma consolidated revenue of $26.02 billion (€23.5 billion) and pro forma adjusted EBITDA of $9.86 billion (€8.9 billion) for the year ended December 2016.

The company intends to use the net proceeds from this offering to redeem a portion of the $2 billion aggregate principal amount outstanding of the CSC 2025 senior notes issued by CSC Holdings. The remainder will go toward working capital and general corporate purposes.

Shares of Altice closed on Thursday at $32.71, up 9% on the day, with over 31.4 million shares moving, in the range of $31.52 to $32.74. They were up another 3.6% to $33.90 in Friday’s premarket.

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About the Author Chris Lange →

Chris Lange is a writer for 24/7 Wall St., based in Houston. He has covered financial markets over the past decade with an emphasis on healthcare, tech, and IPOs. During this time, he has published thousands of articles with insightful analysis across these complex fields. Currently, Lange's focus is on military and geopolitical topics.

Lange's work has been quoted or mentioned in Forbes, The New York Times, Business Insider, USA Today, MSN, Yahoo, The Verge, Vice, The Intelligencer, Quartz, Nasdaq, The Motley Fool, Fox Business, International Business Times, The Street, Seeking Alpha, Barron’s, Benzinga, and many other major publications.

A graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, Lange majored in business with a particular focus on investments. He has previous experience in the banking industry and startups.