The results can be summarized as follows: revenues and operating profit are down; free cash flow is clearly negative; customers are constantly leaving the company; refinancing of an increasingly expensive debt is becoming less and less sustainable.

Net debt represents x6.6 of EBITDA - let's be clear about this: "adjusted". - but what sense does it make to use an operating profit adjusted for the cost of investments in such a capital-intensive activity? A priori none, except to put people to sleep.

Instead, we can imagine a net debt equivalent to x23 the average annual profit over the last five years. This does not help a group that has recorded a negative free cash flow of $166 million in the first quarter of 2023, compared with a cash profit of $209 million at the same time last year.

The situation is becoming more complicated in the markets served by Altice, which are increasingly competitive. The group does not shine either by the quality of its service, which is strongly criticized in the US. In this context, it will be less obvious to amortize the colossal amounts committed to the deployment of fiber.

Next year's debt maturity has been refinanced, but at an exorbitant cost - the new debt was taken on at 11% interest. The rise in rates is hurting Altice, which still has $13 billion of debt maturities over the next five years.

The least we can say is that in the United States as well as in Europe, Patrick Drahi will not have left an imperishable memory to his minority shareholders. The market capitalization of Altice in the United States has been divided by twelve since the introduction; this rout reminds the precedent of Altice in Europe.

Drahi will have used his partners' money for massive share buybacks, thus increasing his control, and then leaving them high and dry with huge capital losses. As he did with Altice Europe, the billionaire will, I bet, have a lot of fun privatizing Altice USA to its historical lows.

In short: heads you lose, tails I win.