Covage is on sale for one billion euros
After Altice at the end of November, it is Cube Infrastructure's turn to put its shares up for sale according to several sources. Covage's 50% shareholder paid 66 million euros in 2012 to buy back its shares from Vinci. However, Morgan Stanley Bank was mandated to find a buyer on the basis of a valuation of €1 billion.
The group's EBITDA would now reach €35 million for a turnover of around €100 million. "These ratios are not relevant. We are talking about an activity in full explosion with a very low maturity. In reality, the main driver is rarity," points out a good connoisseur of the file.
Charged by several departments with deploying optical fibre, Covage has already connected 630,000 of the planned 2.2 million households. The company still hopes to win a few more contracts to reach 3 million catches, which would represent just under 10% of French households.
When all the cables are pulled, Covage will be one of the few players to have such a digital infrastructure in a significant portion of the country. Indeed, once this task is completed, operators will have to pay a fee to use their networks.
€1.8 billion to acquire half of the optical lines that SFR must deploy outside major cities. But this deal is criticized in the industry because many believe that the infrastructure has been oversold. Indeed, the line rental prices highlighted could not be applied.
On paper, there are many candidates for the acquisition of Covage: investment funds, other RIP players, in particular Altitude or major operators...
Source : Les Echos.fr