Moody’s rates Altice US loan Ba3

Moody's Investors Service said it assigned a Ba3 instrument-level rating to Altice US Finance I Corp.'s (subsidiary of Cequel Communications Holdings I, LLC) $815 million senior secured term loan B.

Proceeds will be used to pay off the existing term loan B set to mature in 2022.

The company's B3 corporate family rating, B3-PD probability of default rating, Caa1 unsecured rating and outlook remain unchanged.

The SGL-2 rating was withdrawn.

The new term loan will be used to refinance the existing term loan at Altice US Finance I. The leverage neutral refinance transaction also improves the company's maturity profile extending the maturity of this obligation by three years to 2025.

Moody’s said the B3 corporate family rating reflects the company's very high leverage, its limited free cash flow and the parent company's aggressive financial policy. Cequel's total consolidated leverage is about 7 times debt to EBITDA (Moody's adjusted, and including seller notes), which creates risk for a company in a capital intensive, competitive industry.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.