Altice International: Enormous Investments Capacity Comes Back to Bite
Kirsten Heenan, J.D. - Senior Covenant Analyst, Covenant Review
1 December 2025
Insights into Altice International’s Unrestricted Subsidiary Designations:
- Massive Asset Transfer Outside Restricted Group: Altice Portugal and Caribbean designations shifted approximately 80% of EBITDA outside bondholder protection.
- Structurally Senior Debt Priming Bondholders: €750 million senior debt raised with €2 billion additional capacity reserved for further priming.
- Decade-Long Build-Up Basket Without Ratio Test: Investment capacity accrued since 2012 totaling €13.5 billion, exempted from leverage ratio requirements for investments.
- Multiple Generous Investment Baskets Enable Dropdown: Additional investment capacity includes €700 million baskets and percentage-of-EBITDA carveouts across multiple provisions.
- Future Double-Dip and Asset Sale Flexibility: Unrestricted subsidiaries can loan proceeds to restricted group and be sold without Asset Sales covenant constraints.
The Bottom Line™:
- Last Friday, Altice International announced it had designated Altice Portugal and Altice Caribbean as Unrestricted Subsidiaries, moving significant value out of the restricted group for its high yield bonds.
- The aggressive maneuver took advantage of the staggering amount of investment capacity under Altice International’s bonds, including a Restricted Payments build-up basket that has been accruing capacity for over a decade and importantly—has no ratio test for investments.
- Additionally, we review the key sources of investment capacity and explain the implications of the Unrestricted Subsidiary designations.
Overview
This year’s Black Friday turned into “Bleak Friday” for Altice International S.à r.l. (“Altice International” or the “Company”) investors when the Patrick Drahi-owned telecommunications giant announced that it had designated Altice Portugal S.A. (“Altice Portugal”) and Altice Caribbean S.à r.l. (“Altice Caribbean”) as Unrestricted Subsidiaries under each of Altice International’s debt documents.The Company also announced that a subsidiary of Altice Portugal had raised €750 million of structurally senior debt and that a further €2 billion of incremental debt capacity at Altice Portugal had been reserved.
Fill out the below form to view the full article:
Please note that we can only respond to valid business email addresses and the interview is already available to clients.
Recently Published
Research
