Altice USA drew bids as Suddenlink sales process continues – report (NYSE:ATUS)

Altice USA (NYSE:ATUS) received a first round of bids for its Suddenlink operations a few weeks ago, TMT Finance reports, saying the sale could come for the entire business or piecemeal.

That backs up commentary from CEO Dexter Goei in August’s earnings call, where he said “Altice USA received a lot of inquiries from potential buyers for all or parts of Suddenlink. I think we could confirm there is a process going on.”

Previous reports suggested the sale could be for geographic clusters of the southern-U.S.-focused Suddenlink, but TMT Finance says Altice may now be considering just two – Texas and southeastern areas.

And buyers could include Astound Broadband (backed by Stonepeak), Blackstone (BX), and several others.

Suddenlink has about 1.8M customers across 17 states.

Also in August, Altice USA started working to rebrand Suddenlink as Optimum, unifying its cable operations under one brand. But a sale of Suddenlink that could bring $20B in bids would go a long way toward debt relief: The stock has a market cap that’s tumbled more than 50% in the past six months, to $2.7B – while at last report it had $33B in assets but a little more than that in liabilities, with more than $23.5B in long-term debt.