High price
Altice stopped reporting results for the BeLux activities at the end of last year. According to the latest estimates, the cable network passes around 260,000 homes, has 110,000 customers, and generates annual revenue of EUR 75 million and EBITDA of about EUR 50 million. If Altice achieves a price of EUR 500 million, this would mean around EUR 4,600 per customer (very high), 6.6 times revenue (also a lot) and 9.6 times EBITDA (not unusual). Given the limited scale and synergy opportunities, Altice looks set to make a nice profit.
Candidates: Telenet, Orange and Proximus
Telenet is clearly the most obvious candidate; sooner or later it will consolidate the Belgian market. The other main cable operator, Voo (Brutélé and Nethys), would like to do that as well, but given their quasi-public ownership, are unlikely to be buyers. Orange could make an offer, in an attempt to unite the cable operators in the French-speaking regions. It is already the country's largest cable operator, albeit 'virtual' using other companies' networks. By buying its own piece of network, it could increase its margins, but it would then face a new technology choice and major investments.
Proximus cannot be ruled out either, as it recently said coax could be part of its roadmap for reaching outlying areas. SFR could teach Proximus something about coax and also serve a strategic end: preventing Telenet from becoming a national fixed operator.
