Group revenue +3.2% and Telecom revenue +2.7%

Group EBITDA +5.1%

€3.5 billion of available liquidity²

AMSTERDAM–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Regulatory News:

Altice Europe N.V. (Euronext: ATC and ATCB) today announces financial and operating results for the quarter ended September 30, 2020.

Patrick Drahi, Altice Europe founder: “In line with the performance since the beginning of the year, the Group proved its resilience during the third quarter. In France, we have maintained growth in our core telecom business, supported by residential service revenue growth. The Altice Corporate Financing facility was repaid during the third quarter, following the issuance of €900 million equivalent of new 8.25-year Senior Secured Notes at Altice France. Including these transactions, the Group has repaid €1.4 billion of debt since April 2020. The Group’s diversified and simplified capital structure has no material maturities before 2025 and €3.5 billion of available liquidity. We maintain our FY 2020 guidance to grow revenue and EBITDA, and continue to focus on deleveraging the Group through growing revenue, EBITDA and cash flow.”

Altice Europe Q3 2020 Key Financial Highlights

• Group revenue grew by +3.2% YoY in Q3 2020.
• Telecom revenue excluding equipment and roaming grew by +4.4% YoY in Q3 2020.
• Residential service revenue excluding roaming grew by +1.9% YoY in Q3 2020.
• Telecom EBITDA grew by +0.7% YoY in Q3 2020 and Telecom EBITDA margin was 39.9%.
• Total accrued capital expenditure was €818 million in Q32020.
• Consequently, Operating Free Cash Flow amounted to €663 million in Q3 2020. 

Altice Europe Q3 2020 Key Operational Highlights

• Altice France achieved a solid financial performance in Q3 2020, with revenue growth in the residential service and business services segments supporting total revenue growth of +4.0% YoY:
  • The residential fixed base grew by +21k net additions, with +113k fibre net additions and 50% of the total fixed subscriber base on fibre. The residential mobile postpaid base grew by +25k net additions.
  • Altice France reported revenue growth of +4.0% YoY and EBITDA growth of +2.8% YoY in Q3 2020. Residential service revenue, excluding roaming out, grew by +3.2% YoY in Q3 2020.
• Altice International Telecom revenue, excluding low margin equipment revenue and roaming revenue, declined by -0.3% YoY in Q3 2020. Altice International residential service revenue, excluding roaming, declined by -1.6% YoY.
  • The residential fixed base grew by +17k net additions, with +50k fibre net additions. The residential mobile postpaid base grew by +27k net additions.

Capital Structure Key Highlights – including subsequent events

• Total consolidated Altice Europe net debt was €28.9 billion at the end of Q3 2020 (€28.5billion pro forma for the €375 million earn-out due in December 2021 related to the FastFiber partnership).
• On September 15, 2020, Altice Europe announced that it had issued €900 million (equivalent) 8.25-year Senior Secured Notes at Altice France S.A. (“Altice France”) following significant excess demand. The weighted average cost on a fully euro swapped basis is 4.125%. This consists of €500 million of 8.25-year Senior Secured Notes with a coupon of 4.125% and $475 million of 8.25-year Senior Secured Notes with a coupon of 5.125%. The proceeds from this transaction have been used to repay the then outstanding amount under the Altice France revolving credit facility of €150 million, and the remaining proceeds of €750 million have been used to repay the Altice Corporate Financing facility. The remainder of this facility has been repaid with cash on balance sheet at Altice International. Total annual interest savings pro forma for this transaction are €33 million, through a reduction of the average cost of debt.
• On September 11, 2020, Altice Europe and Next Private B.V. announced that a conditional agreement has been reached on a recommended public offer to be made by Next Private B.V., for all common shares A and all common shares B in the capital of Altice Europe, for €4.11 in cash per share (cum dividend). Altice Europe and Next Private continue to make good progress on the preparation for the offer and expect to be able to make a public announcement on the offer soon.
• On July 27, 2020, Altice Europe announced two agreements with Mediapro. Firstly, for the season 2020/21, Altice Europe will resell the UEFA rights to Mediapro in exchange for Altice Europe’s right to resell Mediapro’s TELEFOOT channel (including the main football matches for French Ligue 1 and Ligue 2). This will allow Mediapro to broadcast the UEFA Champions League and Europa League. Both the RMC Sport channel and Mediapro’s TELEFOOT channel will broadcast the two competitions from October 2020. SFR will offer all of the football to its customers with RMC Sport, TELEFOOT, Canal+ and BeIN SPORTS. Secondly, for the seasons 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24, Altice Europe entered into a distribution agreement with Mediapro to resell the TELEFOOT channel (including the main football matches for French Ligue 1 and Ligue 2) with a revenue share mechanism. This is expected to generate additional revenues for the Altice France residential segment. With this agreement, Altice Europe maintains the commitment to improve Altice TV cash flow trends, approaching break-even, while SFR customers will continue to benefit from the best football offer in France.
• On July 22, 2020, Altice International repaid $385 million (€342 million equivalent) 7.625% 2025 notes. In addition to this, the Group has bought back €105 million of debt at Altice International in Q3 2020, or €244 million of debt at Altice International since April 2020. In combination with the Altice Corporate Financing (“ACF”) facility repayment, the Group has repaid €1.4 billion of debt since April 2020.
• On July 2, 2020, the transfer of approximately 9% of the share capital of Altice France S.A. from Altice Europe to Altice France Holding S.A. was completed, in-line with the previously stated objective as part of the January 2020 Altice France refinancing.

Guidance

• For the full year 2020, the Group expects to:
  • Accelerate residential revenue growth in its key geographies;
  • Grow Altice Europe revenue;
  • Grow Altice Europe EBITDA.
• In the mid-term, the Group targets organic free cash flow³ of more than €1 billion.
• Further delever the Group, target leverage of 4.0x to 4.5x net debt to EBITDA
• The Group continues to assess the potential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic carefully, especially the impacts on roaming and advertising.

Conference call details

The company will host a conference call and webcast today, November 19, 2020 at 6:00pm CET (5:00pm GMT, 12:00pm EST).

Dial-in Access telephone numbers:

Participant Toll Free Dial-In Number: +1 (833) 968-2322

Participant International Dial-In Number: +1 (778) 560-2842

Conference ID: 7690887

A live webcast of the presentation will be available on the following website:

https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/2631118/05F1562E98E8A298F94071B9BF5EB615

The presentation for the conference call will be made available prior to the call on our investor relations website:

http://altice.net/investor-relations

About Altice Europe

Altice Europe (ATC & ATCB), listed on Euronext Amsterdam, is a convergent leader in telecoms, content, media, entertainment and advertising. Altice Europe delivers innovative, customer-centric products and solutions that connect and unlock the limitless potential of its over 30 million customers over fibre networks and mobile broadband. Altice Europe is also a provider of enterprise digital solutions to millions of business customers. Altice Europe innovates with technology, research and development and enables people to live out their passions by providing original content, high-quality and compelling TV shows, and international, national and local news channels. Altice Europe delivers live broadcast premium sports events and enables its customers to enjoy the most well-known media and entertainment.

Financial Presentation

Altice Europe and its subsidiaries have operated for several years and have from time to time made significant equity investments in a number of cable and telecommunication businesses in various jurisdictions. Therefore, in order to facilitate an understanding of Altice Europe’s results of operations, we have presented and discussed the pro-forma consolidated financial information of Altice Europe – giving effect to each such significant acquisition and disposal as if such acquisitions and disposals had occurred by January 1, 2019. Therefore financials for Altice Europe for the quarters ended September 30, 2019 and September 30, 2020 exclude the press magazine Groupe L’Express (following disposal on July 30, 2019) and the newspaper Libération (following disposal on September 03, 2020).

This press release contains measures and ratios (the “Non-GAAP measures”), including Adjusted EBITDA, Capital Expenditure (“Capex”) and Operating Free Cash Flow, that are not required by, or presented in accordance with, IFRS or any other generally accepted accounting standards. We present Non-GAAP measures because we believe that they are of interest to the investors and similar measures are widely used by certain investors, securities analysts and other interested parties as supplemental measures of performance and liquidity. The Non-GAAP measures may not be comparable to similarly titled measures of other companies or have limitations as analytical tools and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our, or any of our subsidiaries’, operating results as reported under IFRS or other generally accepted accounting standards. Non-GAAP measures such as Adjusted EBITDA are not measurements of our, or any of our subsidiaries’, performance or liquidity under IFRS or any other generally accepted accounting principles, including U.S. GAAP. In particular, you should not consider Adjusted EBITDA as an alternative to (a) operating profit or profit for the period (as determined in accordance with IFRS) as a measure of our, or any of our operating entities’, operating performance, (b) cash flows from operating, investing and financing activities as a measure of our, or any of our subsidiaries’, ability to meet its cash needs or (c) any other measures of performance under IFRS or other generally accepted accounting standards. In addition, these measures may also be defined and calculated differently than the corresponding or similar terms under the terms governing our existing debt.

Adjusted EBITDA is defined as operating income before depreciation and amortization, other expenses and income (capital gains, non-recurring litigation, restructuring costs) and share-based expenses and after operating lease expenses. This may not be comparable to similarly titled measures used by other entities. Further, this measure should not be considered as an alternative for operating income as the effects of depreciation, amortization and impairment excluded from this measure do ultimately affect the operating results, which is also presented within the annual consolidated financial statements in accordance with IAS 1 – Presentation of Financial Statements. All references to EBITDA in this press release are to Adjusted EBITDA, as defined in this paragraph.

Capital expenditure (Capex), while measured in accordance with IFRS principles is not a term that is defined in IFRS. However, Altice Europe’s management believe it is an important indicator for the Group as the profile varies greatly between activities:

• The fixed business has fixed Capex requirements that are mainly discretionary (network, platforms, general), and variable Capex requirements related to the connection of new customers and the purchase of Customer Premise Equipment (TV decoder, modem, etc.).
• Mobile Capex is mainly driven by investment in new mobile sites, upgrade to new mobile technology and licenses to operate; once engaged and operational, there are limited further Capex requirements.
• Other Capex: Mainly related to costs incurred in acquiring content rights.

Operating free cash flow (OpFCF) is defined as Adjusted EBITDA less Capex. This may not be comparable to similarly titled measures used by other entities. Further, this measure should not be considered as an alternative for operating cash flow as presented in the consolidated statement of cash flows in accordance with IAS 1 – Presentation of Financial Statements. It is simply a calculation of the two above mentioned non-GAAP measures.

Adjusted EBITDA and similar measures are used by different companies for differing purposes and are often calculated in ways that reflect the circumstances of those companies. You should exercise caution in comparing Adjusted EBITDA as reported by us to Adjusted EBITDA of other companies. Adjusted EBITDA as presented herein differs from the definition of “Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA” for purposes of any of the indebtedness of the Group. The financial information presented in this press release, including but not limited to the quarterly financial information, pro forma financial information as well as Adjusted EBITDA and OpFCF, is unaudited. In addition, the presentation of these measures is not intended to and does not comply with the reporting requirements of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) and will not be subject to review by the SEC; compliance with its requirements would require us to make changes to the presentation of this information.

Financial and Statistical Information and Comparisons

Financial and statistical information is for the quarter ended September 30, 2020, unless otherwise stated, and any year over year comparisons are for the quarter ended September 30, 2019.

Regulated Information

This press release contains inside information within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the EU Market Abuse Regulation.

Altice Europe Summary Financial Information

Notes to Summary Financial Information tables

1. Segments are shown on a pro forma standalone reporting basis and Group figures are shown on a pro forma consolidated basis. Financials for Altice Europe exclude the press magazine Groupe L’Express (following disposal on July 30, 2019) and newspaper Libération (following disposal on September 03, 2020) from 1/1/19.
2. Adjusted EBITDA is defined as operating income before depreciation and amortization, other expenses and income (capital gains, non-recurring litigation, restructuring costs) and share-based expenses and after operating lease expenses (straight-line recognition of the rent expense over the lease term as performed under IAS 17 Leases for operating leases).
3. Teads gross revenue is presented before discounts (net revenue after discounts is recognised in the consolidated financial statements).

Altice Europe KPIs

Notes to KPIs tables

1. Portugal fibre homes passed figures include homes where MEO has access through wholesale fibre operators (c.0.5 million in Q3 2020).
2. Fibre unique customers represents the number of individual end users who have subscribed for one or more of our fibre / cable based services (including pay television, broadband or telephony), without regard to how many services to which the end user subscribed. It is calculated on a unique premise basis. Fibre customer base for France includes FTTH, FTTB and 4G Box customers and excludes white-label wholesale customers. For Israel, it refers to the total number of unique customer relationships, including both B2C and B2B.
3. Mobile subscribers are equal to the net number of lines or SIM cards that have been activated on the Group’s mobile networks and excludes M2M. 

Altice Europe Financial and Operational Review by Segment

For the quarter ended September 30, 2020 compared to the quarter ended September 30, 2019

France (Altice France including SFR)

Altice France reported residential service revenue growth in Q3 2020, supported by a sustained focus on operations and significant and ongoing investment in proprietary infrastructure.

At the end of Q3 2020, Altice France had 18.8 million homes passed (FTTH/FTTB), an increase of more than 1.3 million homes passed compared to Q2 2020. SFR had 6,481 fibre municipalities at the end of Q3 2020 (vs. 5,515 in Q2 2020 and 4,918 in Q1 2020).

Altice France continues to invest in its 4G network, with 47,822 4G systems activated (1,646 new units in Q3 2020). The current 4G coverage of the SFR Mobile network reaches 99% of the national population (32,532 municipalities). Altice France continues to deploy 4G and new radio sites in white areas. 4G+ is offered in the top 32 French cities, and 2,600 municipalities.

Altice France’s media business DTT channels achieved new historical records in Q3 2020, with 6.7% of national audience share. Altice France has consolidated its position as the third largest private broadcasting group in France. Additionally, an agreement on the restructuring plan announced on May 19, 2020 has been signed with unions on September 15, 2020 and approved by the administration. The plan opened on October 8, 2020 and will end on December 23, 2020.

On August 20, 2020, SFR successfully launched TELEFOOT as well as the associated offers. SFR offers subscribers a significant array of sport content, including all major French football (Ligue 1, Ligue 2) and European football (UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, English Premier League, Spanish and Italian championships).

On October 1, 2020, SFR announced it had obtained 80 MHz as part of the allocation of 5G frequencies in the 3.4-3.8 Ghz band. Following the auction for the allocation of the remaining spectrum in the 3.4-3.8 GHz band, SFR obtained 3 additional 10MHz blocks, bringing its total spectrum in this band to 80MHz. The price for SFR for these 80Mhz frequencies will total €728 million (€350 million to be paid over a 15-year period in equal amounts, and €378 million paid over 4 years also in equal amounts). The first payment of c. €118 million is expected to take place in Q4 2020. SFR will be able to offer an optimal 5G experience to its customers. SFR has recently carried out several demonstrations of the potential of 5G, with tests under real conditions in Toulouse, Nantes and Velizy (Paris).

• Total revenue increased by +4.0% YoY in Q3 2020 to €2,745 million. This increase was supported by residential and business services revenue growth, offsetting media revenue declines.
• Residential service revenue in Q3 2020, excluding roaming, grew by +3.2% YoY as a result of subscriber base growth and improved ARPU trends. This segment was still affected by the COVID-19 pandemic related impacts as roaming revenue remained depressed year over year.
• The residential fixed base in France grew with +21k unique customer net additions in Q3 2020 (vs. +37k in Q2 2020 and +41k in Q3 2019).
  • Fibre net additions reached +113k in Q3 2020 (vs. +100k in Q2 2020 and +59k in Q3 2019) due to increasing fibre appetite and DSL to fibre conversions.
• Mobile res

Contacts

Altice Europe

Head of Investor Relations Altice Europe
Sam Wood: +41 79 538 66 82 / sam.wood@altice.net

Head of Communications Altice Europe
Arthur Dreyfuss: +41 79 946 4931 / arthur.dreyfuss@altice.net

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