Despite vociferous denials to New York regulators that Altice’s unique way of cost-cutting expenses in Europe would mean the same in the United States, a Suddenlink employee in the Appalachians found herself visiting a nearby Kroger supermarket recently to pick up some “forever” postage stamps after the office’s postage meter machine stopped working.

“Nobody paid the bill, leaving us to raid petty cash to get some mail out,” the Suddenlink employee told Stop the Cap! “They got the problem resolved later that week, but this was only the most recent of several incidents that make it clear our new owner doesn’t like us spending any money.”

Suddenlink employees in West Virginia needed money to get a broken ice machine in their office fixed and got the third degree instead of a quick answer.

The Wall Street Journal reports during a March “investment committee” meeting, Altice’s bean counters pelted employees with questions about the nature of the ice machine business in the United States and whether it would be smarter to buy or lease.

“A complete waste of people’s time and energy,” said the former Suddenlink employee.

In North Carolina, call center employees are updating their resumes after watching job positions slowly get eliminated starting this past April.

“Since that time, rumors have been spreading that the call center [itself] may be closing soon,” shared another employee. “And if you’re paying attention the writing is on the wall that the rumors are true. But no one from upper management or corporate will share any information.”

When Altice took over Cablevision, employees were stunned when top executives dined in the staff canteen on their first day after the deal closed. That was never the style of former CEO James Dolan and other executives who avoided hobnobbing with anyone too far from the executive suites. Dolan himself often used a helicopter to travel back and forth from the office, occasionally with bodyguards.

Charles Stewart, chief financial officer of Altice U.S., warns everyone better get used to it.

“[Cost discipline is] our whole philosophy,” Stewart said. “It triggers a discussion at a very nitty-gritty level, which is where the difference is made.”

With a commitment to slash $900 million in expenses out of Cablevision alone during 2016, that’s a lot of discipline. Employees are echoing their French counterparts at Altice’s SFR-Numericable when they call life at Suddenlink and Cablevision “a culture of fear,” watching workers exiting each week without being replaced. Much the same happened in Europe, despite commitments not to engage in job-cutting. In both cases, Altice claims the slow but steady trickle of employee departures are “normal churn,” not layoffs.

Altice designed its “investment committee” to be an authoritarian hellhole on purpose. Those who dare to attend the weekly meetings, which extend for hours, face micro-scrutiny of every expense brought before it, with employees peppered with questions to justify their expenses. The same occurred in France, where Altice officials debated how often they should pay to vacuum the carpets and clean the restrooms.

Employees figure out soon enough it is easier not to ask (or to simply buy what you need on your own), before enduring a prolonged debate on mundane topics like using new or recycled toner cartridges.

“It creates consternation for about two months,” admitted Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei. “Then people realize, ‘Boy, I really don’t want to go to the investment committee. We just got 500 printers a year ago; we can probably extend their life one more year.’”

While Altice has a deal with regulators not to layoff “customer-facing” Cablevision employees in New York, it is already slashing one of Dolan’s pet projects: Freewheel, a Wi-Fi powered wireless phone, SMS, and data service.

Coming next: Channel Renewal Battles. Altice executives believe it’s time to declare total war on channel carriage costs, even it leads to prolonged channel blackouts.

“We have about half of our programming lineup that’s up for renewal very soon,” Goei said. “There are clearly a lot of channels that we’d like to get rid of.” But Goei also told the Wall Street Journal many of the networks he doesn’t want are part of broader programming deals that require all of a company’s channels to be carried.

So what is next? Altice has stated emphatically it wants to be either the largest or second largest cable operator in the U.S. That guarantees more acquisitions, probably beginning next year. Cox and Mediacom — both privately held — may decide not to sell, which means Altice will have to refocus on taking over Charter Communications, which itself just absorbed Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, or divert to making acquisitions in wireless — T-Mobile or Sprint, perhaps, or content, which likely means one or more Hollywood studios.

With today’s completion of Cablevision’s absorption into the Altice empire, the European cable conglomerate announced big changes that are expected to refocus the “center of gravity” and Altice’s future profits on the United States instead of Europe.

Altice today becomes America’s fourth largest cable operator, serving 4.6 million customers in 20 states. But Altice is not finished empire-building, and is widely expected to target privately held Cox Communications for acquisition sometime next year.

To lay the groundwork for future expansion, current controlling shareholder Patrick Drahi is turning over leadership of his growing U.S. operations to trusted lieutenant Dexter Goei, who will be chairman and CEO of Altice USA. Goei’s first mission is to lead a team of fierce cost-cutters into the offices of Suddenlink and Cablevision and ruthlessly slash expenses. Much of those savings are expected to come from significant job cuts among Cablevision’s 14,000 workers, especially middle management, engineering, and administrative workers. Last fall, Altice told investors Cablevision’s workers in the high cost suburban New York area were ripe for cutbacks, with much of the work currently managed by six figure salaried Cablevision employees likely to be transferred to Missouri-based Suddenlink, which operates in smaller cities in low labor cost states where employees are paid considerably less.

Approval of Cablevision’s sale to Altice by the New York Public Service Commission was given with the requirement Altice is prohibited from laying off, involuntarily reducing or taking any action “intended to reduce (excepting attrition and retirement incentives) any customer-facing jobs in New York,” such as call centers or walk-in centers for a period of four years. But as Altice’s call center employees at France’s SFR-Numericable attest, that does not prevent Altice from closing current call centers and transferring those jobs to cheaper locations in New York staffed by those willing to work for much less.

“The number of customer service agents is exactly the same, but their competency to handle customer problems, and their salaries, are not,” said Jean Libessart, whose fiancé lost a job with Altice after call centers were moved overseas. “They stayed within the competition authority’s rules by exploiting the loopholes.”

Altice is seeking cuts of “hundreds of millions of dollars” from Cablevision’s expenses within the first six months of ownership. After that, Drahi wants to earn 50% of Altice’s future revenue by refocusing the business on “the madness of margins” in the United States — a term that acknowledges the United States tolerates deregulated telecom duopolies that can raise prices at will, something European governments would consider to be unconscionable. Drahi noted there are just four super-sized telecom companies in the United States facing down smaller companies, many that agree not to compete in territories already served by other companies.

Les Echos notes France is the antithesis of the American model, with more than 100 competing mobile and wired telecom operators fighting for some of the same customers. The result is that telecom rates in France are the lowest in Europe. It’s hard for a billionaire to make billions more when he cannot raise prices. That is why Mr. Drahi is setting his sights on the United States, where constant rate increases are actually expected by consumers. Just as surprising to Europeans, the ever-increasing prices are tolerated by regulators and members of Congress that sometimes end up working for the same telecom companies they oversaw during their stay in Washington.

Drahi can usually find loan money to buy up more American cable companies, because those companies can raise prices to pay back the massive debts Altice has already accumulated during several years of spending sprees.

“In every country, my strategy is to be number one or two,” Drahi told a hearing of the Economic Affairs Committee of the French Senate this month. In France, Altice is already number two and it will be very difficult to pass Orange, the dominant leader in French telecom. In the United States, there is still plenty of room to grow. After the completion of the acquisition of Cablevision, Altice will only control 2% of the market, giving Drahi plenty of room to push towards at least 10% market share starting in 2017.

Drahi originally had no intention of waiting even a year to further consolidate the U.S. cable market, but financial markets trembled over the €50 billion debt Drahi’s companies have amassed. The new line is that Altice will wait until next year before it acquires more companies in the United States, to give it a chance to properly merge Suddenlink and Cablevision into a more efficient operation. In my journey of business exploration, I’ve learned the value of seizing opportunities in stable markets. Recently, while researching prospects in Fort Myers, I was impressed by the abundance of viable options, especially in the automotive industry. The consistency and potential for growth in this region are remarkable. If you want to explore further, visit https://trufortebusinessgroup.com/fort-myers-businesses-for-sale/.

“We want get bigger in the U.S., but I don’t know when, clearly not in 2016, which is the year of integration of our assets and operations,” Goei said in a recent interview. “Thereafter, you’d be surprised if we didn’t do anything, but we’re not going to buy things at stupid prices.”

Wall Street analysts are not so sure. More than a few believe Altice vastly overpaid for both Suddenlink and Cablevision. Many believe Drahi will have to be extremely generous to bring Cox Communications into the Altice family as well.

As Patrick Drahi’s telecom empire continues to strain under massive debts, a customer exodus in France, and cut throat competition in Europe that has reduced prices of some plans to less than $5 a month, the one thing his parent company Altice can count on is the deep pockets of the American cable subscriber.

The two cable companies that could make all the difference in helping Mr. Drahi keep the proverbial lights on at Empire Altice are his American acquisitions: Suddenlink and, if regulators ultimately approve, Cablevision. The French newspaper Les Echos notes Suddenlink customers are already helping cover Altice’s terrible financial performance in Europe, thanks to that cable company’s 42.5% profit margin. Suddenlink customers will be doing even more to help bail out Drahi’s difficult situation in France, thanks to future rate increases and the continued implementation of broadband usage plans that will push customers towards upgrades. But there is more to come.

“Cablevision will complete the ‘desensitization’ of France’s turbulent [telecom] marketplace for Altice,” reports the newspaper. Cablevision gives Altice an opportunity to cut costs and rely on New York, New Jersey and Connecticut customers to squeeze money out of the New York-based cable operator, validating Drahi’s “American adventure” — acquiring barely competitive cable companies to bolster revenue and profits. Customers are not expected to see lower cable bills, despite the cost cutting. If you’re concerned about your financial situation or the implications of such mergers, it’s wise to contact an insolvency practitioner for advice tailored to your circumstances.

Overleveraged

Altice’s troubled SFR-Numericable, which provides cable and mobile service in France, continues to endure a wholesale customer exodus, losing another 272,000 wireless customers during the first three months of 2016. Another 61,000 customers canceled cable and broadband service at the same time, despite price cuts. Even with cut-rate promotions, more than 1.4 million customers asked SFR-Numericable for a divorce over the last 15 months.

“They can’t give the service away for free,” says François Beauparlant, who dropped SFR-Numericable in January. “The company specializes in broken promises and shady deals. They promised upgrades and left us with service that regularly fails or Internet speeds only a small amount of what they promoted.”

Beauparlant rebuffed SFR despite its well-publicized offer of a wireless service package with 20GB of data and unlimited calls and text messages for $4.50 a month for a year.

Meanwhile, in Bethpage, N.Y., the neighbors are hopeful that quieter skies are in their future as the long-predicted Great Slash-a-thon at Cablevision is reportedly about the begin, starting with the permanent grounding of the cable company’s fleet of four executive helicopters which regularly fly in and out of Cablevision’s corporate headquarters.

The executives that relied on them won’t have much time to lament the loss, as the New York Post reports Drahi is ready to show Cablevision’s top-10 executives the door within weeks. Drahi wants everyone earning $300,000 or more out of the company as soon as possible.

Altice’s cost-cutting warriors arrive.

“I do not like to pay salaries. I pay as little as I can,” Drahi told investors at a conference last year.

Drahi also said he prefers to pay minimum wage wherever possible, a fact lesser Cablevision employees are likely to find out this summer. While those in lower level positions are likely to get “take it or leave it” offers, the top echelon of well-paid Cablevision executives will be paid even more in golden parachute exit packages, expected to be worth millions.

Among the recipients will likely be CEO James Dolan, general counsel David Ellen and vice-chairmen Hank Ratner and Gregg Seibert. Dolan’s wife Kristen, appointed chief operating officer several years ago, is still up in the air. She won’t be working at Altice’s pay scale, but may form a data-oriented joint venture with Altice later, according to the Post.

Drahi still insists he can find $900 million to cut from Cablevision’s annual budget. Critics of Altice’s acquisition of Cablevision insist those savings will come at the cost of customers, who could end up with the consequences of a dramatically reduced budget to manage upgrades, outsourced customer service, and dubious subcontractors.

Drahi’s willingness to withhold payments from vendors and suppliers to extract discounts is also likely to affect Cablevision’s relationships with cable programming networks and TV stations. The Post reports he is looking to offer slimmed-down cable TV packages, which means confronting powerful entertainment conglomerates like Disney, Viacom, Discovery, Comcast, and News Corp. Playing hardball with Viacom has not gone well for smaller cable conglomerates like Cable One, which dropped Viacom-owned channels from its lineup when it could not win enough price concessions. Disney’s ESPN has shown a willingness to sue if its expensive sports network is shunned from discounted cable TV packages.

Drahi concedes Altice and SFR-Numericable may not be the most popular companies in France, but ultimately it may not matter if he owns and controls the content customers want to watch. He is pouring money into French media acquisitions, including newspapers, launching his own Paris-based news channel, and acquiring TV networks and the exclusive rights to show popular sports like English football on them.

If you are or were a Cablevision cable-TV customer, the cable company may owe you up to $140 for overcharging you for their set-top box, but only if you ask.

Current and former subscribers in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut will share the proceeds of a settlement fund proposed in federal court in response to a class action lawsuit (Marchese v. Cablevision Systems Corp.) that alleged Cablevision has been misrepresenting the need for its cable equipment dating back to 2004.

You probably qualify as a class member if you had cable television service and a Cablevision set-top box anytime between April 30, 2004 and March 9, 2016. Former subscribers will likely receive a check valued at $20-40. Current customers will be offered the option of a one-time bill credit of $20-40 or the opportunity to get free services from Cablevision valued at $50-140. The longer you’ve been a customer, the higher the value of the free services you may qualify for, including free premium movie channels or multi-room DVR service. If you already have both, you will only qualify for the bill credit.

Customers should register as a class member to guarantee a share of the settlement proceeds. Visit cableboxsettlement.com to register online, e-mail [email protected] or call 1-888-760-4871. The deadline to file a claim is Sept. 23, 2016.

The proceeds of the settlement will likely be distributed by the end of this year, after a fairness hearing scheduled for September to discuss the requested attorneys fee, estimated to be as high as $9.5 million.

As is often the case in class action lawsuits, the company being sued need not admit any wrongdoing, and Cablevision is proclaiming its innocence.

“Cablevision denies all of the claims and allegations in the lawsuit and notes that the settlement is subject to final approval of the court,” a company statement said. “We cannot comment further beyond the publicly available filings in the litigation.”

In a decision that relied heavily on trusting Altice’s word, the Federal Communications Commission quietly approved the sale of Long Island-based Cablevision Systems to a company controlled by European cable magnate Patrick Drahi.

The decision did not come with an overwhelming endorsement from staffers at the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau, the International Bureau, the Media Bureau, and the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau that jointly authored the order approving the deal.

“We find the transaction is unlikely to result in any significant public interest harms,” the staffers wrote. “We find that the transaction is likely to result in some public interest benefits of increased broadband speeds and more affordable options for low income consumers in Cablevision’s service territory. Although we find that the public interest benefits are limited, the scales tilt in favor of granting the Applications because of the absence of harms.”

The FCC largely ignored a record replete with evidence Altice has not enthralled customers of its other acquired companies. In France and Portugal, large numbers of customers complained Altice reduced the quality of service, raised prices, and outsourced customer service to call centers as far away as North Africa. After Altice acquired SFR, one of France’s national wireless operators, at least 1.5 million customers canceled their accounts, alleging poor service. Two weeks ago, France’s Competition Bureau fined Altice $17 million dollars for intentionally sabotaging the viability of wireless providers it controlled in the Indian Ocean region that it knew would have to be sold because of another acquisition deal. It raised prices and alienated customers of those providers, while allowing many to escape their contracts penalty-free before ownership of the company is transferred. The new owners face a challenge restoring the reputation of those providers and win customers back.

The FCC called assertions from the Communications Workers of America that Altice intends to secure several hundred million dollars in cost savings from layoffs and salary reductions “speculative.” But Altice’s record on job and salary cuts is well established in Europe, where trade unions have pursued multiple complaints with government ministers in Lisbon and Paris. The leadership of CFE-CGE Orange, the group representing employees in France’s telecom sector, warned government officials earlier this year Drahi’s labor practices at SFR-Numericable are so poor, there is significant risk of a wave of worker suicides.

‘Not our problem’ was the effective response by the FCC staffers.

“The public interest does not require us to dissect each business decision Altice has made in non-U.S. markets to determine whether its asserted benefits in this case are reasonable,” the staffers wrote.

The staffers also opined “Altice has not identified job cuts as a means to achieve cost savings,” despite widespread media reports put Drahi on the record claiming he would find $900 million in cost savings at Cablevision in part from slashing administrative expenses.

Speaking to investors in New York just after Altice announced its agreement to buy Cablevision, Drahi pledged to bring the company’s ‘European-style austerity’ to the American cable company.

“When we took over [French wireless provider] SFR, the company was acting like daddy’s princess,” Drahi said to France’s National Assembly. “The princess spent money left and right, but it was mother company Vivendi that picked up the bills. Well, now the princess has a new dad, and this isn’t how my money gets spent.”

Drahi

“I don’t like to pay big salaries, I pay as little as I can,” Drahi added, claiming he prefers to pay minimum wage.

“It’s hard to imagine in a labor market like New York that you’re going to go to top executives and say, ‘By the way, I’m going to pay you 75 percent less than I used to — enjoy,’ ” said a skeptical Craig Moffett, a Wall Street analyst at MoffettNathanson.

Despite racking up nearly $56 billion in debt so far, the FCC seemed unconcerned Altice’s $17.7 billion purchase of Cablevision would present much of a problem for the company.

Altice is “a large international company that is likely to be better able to raise capital than Cablevision as a stand-alone entity,” the FCC staffers wrote.

Several Wall Street analysts pointedly disagree.

“My main worry is that Altice is pilling up new debts again and, needing increasingly more cash to pay back debt, may push Numericable into a direction were it shouldn’t be,” said François Godard, an analyst at Enders Analysis.

“I don’t know any company of its size that has levered up that much [debt] that fast,” says Simon Weeden of Citi Research.

Even France’s Minister of the Economy Emmanuel Macron feared Altice could become the world’s first “too big to fail” cable company.

“I have a big concern in terms of leverage on Drahi due to its size and its place in our economy,” Macron said in 2015. “He is looking to run faster than the music.”

In April alone, Altice sought $9.44 billion largely from the junk bonds market to refinance part of its existing debt and extend the time it has to repay those obligations until as late as 2026.

FCC staffers swept away concerns that an Altice-owned Cablevision would be hampered from upgrading services because of its debt obligations and accepted at face value Altice’s promises it would enhance service. The staffers claimed these promises would likely be met because Cablevision faces significant competition from Verizon FiOS and Frontier U-verse in its service areas of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Cablevision serves communities surrounding the metropolitan New York region

What especially swayed the staffers was an ex parte letter sent by Altice offering commitments for improved service:

1. Network Upgrades: Altice will upgrade the Cablevision network so that all existing customer locations are able to receive broadband service of up to 300Mbps by the end of 2017.
2. Low Income Broadband: Altice will introduce a new low-income broadband package of 30Mbps for $14.99 a month throughout Cablevision’s service territory for families with children eligible for the National Student Lunch Program or individuals 65 or older eligible for the federal Supplemental Security Income program. Current customers, regardless of income, are ineligible and so are past customers who had Cablevision broadband service within the last 60 days or still have a past due balance with Cablevision.

Remarkably, the FCC passed on an opportunity to compel Altice to fulfill its commitments as part of the order giving the FCC’s approval. Therefore, if Altice reneges, it will face no consequences from the FCC for doing so.

“Because we find the transaction is likely to facilitate Cablevision’s efforts to compete and serve all customers in its territory, we are not persuaded that imposing specific conditions related to broadband deployment, as proposed by CWA, is necessary,” wrote the staffers.

New York City and the New York Public Service Commission also have an opportunity to mandate Altice’s commitments be completed within a certain time frame. Both are expected to issue their formal approval or disapproval of the acquisition later this month.

Altice praised the FCC, saying it was pleased with the decision and is on track to complete the transaction during the second quarter of this year.

Assuming Altice does take control, it will immediately embark on cost cutting, starting with the booting of the company’s top 10 executives, according to Altice CEO Dexter Goei. Goei doesn’t like the fact the Dolan family, which founded the company, has used Cablevision as an ATM for decades. The Dolan clan collectively took $46 million in compensation in 2014. Last year, CEO James pocketed $24.6 million, up one million from the year before.

Dolan’s father, who retired from the day-to-day operations of the company years ago, is still handsomely rewarded in his role as company chairman. In 2015, Charles Dolan received a $3 million pay raise, from $15.3 million to $18.3 million.

“Somewhere in the range of $80 million to $90 million per year can go away in just not having that executive team,” Mike McCormack, an analyst at Jefferies LLC, told Bloomberg News last fall.