Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Numericable: Carlyle's Latest Haircut


What a difference a year makes. March 2008 saw The Carlyle Group buy a 37.8% stake in French cablenet company Numericable. Carlyle purchased half of Cinven's position. Cinven is a UK based private equity underwriter (PEU).

Fall 2009 found Numericable begging creditors for a haircut. Reuters reported:

Numericable has reached a deal with its creditors over the restructuring of its debt, the French cable television operator said on Wednesday.

Numericable's private equity owners, Cinven, Carlyle Group and media and telecom investment group Altice, have also agreed to delever the company by injecting 50 million euros in cash and cutting debt by 180 million euros.
How many credit default swaps (cds) did the debt restructuring trigger? America eliminated debt restructuring as a cds trigger. The EU is yet to follow. Add Numericable to Carlyle's growing list of imploded or troubled deals. Bankrupt or debt restructured firms include:

Carlyle Capital Corporation-bankrupt
BlueWave Partners-folded
SemGroup-bankrupt
Hawaiian Telecom-bankrupt
Edscha-bankrupt
IMO Carwash-forced debt restructing
Stallion Oilfield Services-bankrupt
American Achievement-teetering
Numericable-debt restructuring

Stressed deals include:

ARINC
Allison Transmissions

Freescale Semiconductor

Frontier Drilling

Harrah's
HD Supply
LifeCare Holdings

Oriental Trading

PQ Corporation

Sequa Corporation
Synagro Technologies
TSI Acquisitions (Titan Specialties)

UCI Holdco (United Components)

Veyance Technologies

Debt holders must be nervous, unless it's a backdoor strategy to equity ownership.