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Altice France is preparing to announce a deal with a group of its secured lenders as early as this week, according to 9fin sources.

The steer co group put forward a proposal to the French telco earlier this year, after the parties failed to come to an agreement in November.

Now, 9fin sources say Altice France is close to a deal along those terms. But the deal is not signed yet and negotiations could change the terms even at this late stage.

Under the steer co’s terms, the SSNs and TLB debt (maturing July 2025 onwards) would receive 10.1c or €1.943bn cash paydown at par, 76.7c or €14.759bn of reinstated debt issued at OpCo level at 7.125% EUR-equivalent coupon due 2028-2032, and 31% equity stake.

The HoldCo notes would receive up to 5.0c (or €219m) cash paydown at par, up to 19.0c or €834m of reinstated debt at HoldCo level with a 9.125% coupon and issued with a 3% OID. The maturity would be six months after the last OpCo debt maturity and the remainder of the HoldCo debt would be converted into an equity stake to be defined.

The cash available for the transaction totals €2.85bn and includes €200m pre-closing cash, asset sale proceeds from La Poste Mobile (€530m), UltraEdge (€460m), and Altice Media (€1.54bn), and the €830m XpFibre dividend, minus €710m used for the Jan and Feb-25 debt repayment.

The proposal values XpFibre at €9.3bn based on a 21.5x EV/EBITDA multiple and ~€400m EBITDA. Net debt at the entity currently sits at €5.3bn equating to €4bn equity of which Altice owns a ~50% stake.

There is also an excess cash flow sweep which would see cash used to repay the secured debt subject to a liquidity test.

In addition, the proposal includes a tightening of the docs as expected and the inclusion of two independent directors selected by Altice France creditors.

The steerco consists of 19 funds including PIMCO, Elliott, BlackRock, Anchorage Capital Group, UBS Asset Management, Sona Asset Management, Carlyle, and Sculptor, as reported.

The group’s secured group of creditors which holds over €17bn of the outstanding €20bn of debt, is being represented by Gibson Dunn and Rothschild.

A crossholder group, majority of which contains unsecured creditors, is being advised by Milbank, Willkie Farr, and Houlihan Lokey.

Altice France is being advised by White & Case, Ropes & Gray, De Pardieu, and Lazard.

Altice France and a spokesperson for the AHG declined to comment.