D.C. Memo: CFO Says Cogeco Could Sell Breezeline Assets

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Cogeco: Breezeline, or at least parts of it, could be for sale. “We are looking at our network, especially in the U.S., right now because we are in some different places. And if we feel some areas could be good disposal candidates, we'll look at it," Cogeco Chief Financial Officer Patrice Ouimet said Tuesday. Cogeco, based in Montreal, bought Atlantic Broadband for $1.36 billion in 2012, MetroCast for about $1.4 billion in 2018, and some Ohio cable assets from WideOpenWest (WOW!) for $1.12 billion in 2021. In 2022, Atlantic Broadband was rebranded to become Breezeline. Breezeline ended the second quarter with 655,330 broadband subscribers, down 7,897 sequentially. In calls this year with Wall Street analysts, Cogeco leaders have pointed to performance issues with its Ohio cable networks in competition with Fixed Wireless Access service from T-Mobile and Verizon. "It's been more impactful in the Ohio region, where we made an acquisition a few years ago. We haven't seen a slowdown in the level of competition or, I would say, the impact on pricing on the market," Ouimet said. Cogeco's new CEO Frederic Perron, who took over in March, reorganized Breezeline's leadership that included the departure of several top executives, including Frank van der Post. The potential sale of U.S. broadband assets was a new development, Ouimet said. "I'm not going to comment too much publicly about it," he said at a BMO investor conference. "But it's not something we were looking at doing a few of years ago, but now that is a possibility, if it makes sense strategically [and] operationally, as well as when we look at the interconnection of our networks, and also financially."