Altice USA Needs to Accelerate Its Operational Turnaround

Altice USA has struggled to retain customers recently—more than cable peers Comcast and Charter—as it battles stiff competition from Verizon in the New York market and faces the broader incursion of fixed-wireless players into the broadband business. The firm has also taken a different approach to the business in recent years than other cable operators, with lackluster results. A new management team, largely hailing from Comcast, has slowly been improving the firm's performance. We expect the firm’s networks will remain vital pieces of infrastructure that will generate strong, albeit slow-growing, cash flow over the long term. However, Altice USA's very large debt load leaves little room for error.