The prospect of going out of business is slipping away for Kosc. "A business continuity plan will be proposed by Kosc's management and massively supported by Altitude Infrastructure," explains David El Fassy, the president of this group specialising in the deployment of fibre optics in rural areas.

The offer will be placed on Monday on the desk of the receiver, who will have to choose between it and possible disposal plans presented by other candidates, such as Bouygues Telecom, which has long been presented as a potential buyer.

"We propose to maintain the business and the services provided to customers. We are backed by Altitude, an extremely experienced family group used to providing wholesale only services. And we pay the company's liabilities. This is by far the best solution," argues Yann de Prince, Kosc's founding president.

As part of the continuation plan, the debts of 40 million euros would be renegotiated. And an agreement would be sought with SFR to settle any dispute.

The fact remains that the company is burning cash. The former shareholders - the OVH group and Caisse des Dépôts - had agreed to provide 4 million euros at the beginning of December to ensure operations during the recovery phase. The administrator knows that this cash box will soon be empty.

Faced with this cash flow problem, Altitude Infrastructure promises to invest 100 million euros in Kosc over the next five years. A large part of this contribution will be made out of own funds.  "Acquiring new customers is expensive, explains David El Fassy. Kosc's technical infrastructure is now efficient and supplies a lot of companies. Kosc's market is ahead of him. Our business plan foresees a return to operational equilibrium in 2022."

The existence of this continuation plan should reassure Kosc's employees, the dozens of customer operators, the companies that they themselves supply, and also the elected representatives of the Senate and the Assembly, who have taken up the challenge in recent months to criticise the Competition Authority's action on the corporate telecoms market. Indeed, faced with the very unsatisfactory access of SMEs to optical fibre and high prices, in a context of Orange and to a lesser extent SFR domination, the parliamentarians called for the rescue of the Kosc model. The rescue is on its way.

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Source : Les Echos

Kosc Telecom was the solution devised by the public authorities to bring more competition to the business telecoms market. Just three years after its launch, Kosc is expected to file for bankruptcy leaving a slate of 120 million euros.

After the merger with SFR, Kosc acquired part of the activities of Numericable (Completel). Bpifrance had injected 9 million euros and OVH was also a shareholder via a contribution "in industry". The idea was to make Kosc the third man in the lucrative telecom business market, 85% owned by Orange and SFR.

In 2018, Caisse des Dépôts et Consignation had in turn promised to provide 20 million euros to Kosc. It was without counting on a grain of sand: a lawsuit lost to SFR and the threat of having to pay it 20 million euros. For the Caisse, the risk was too high and decided to withdraw from the case, leading to the fall of the telecom operator.

A new game should be played at the helm of the commercial court, with potential buyers. Indeed, the telecoms sector has evolved since 2016 and Free and Bouygues Telecom have in turn launched themselves into the business market. Bouygues' subsidiary would also be a serious candidate for the takeover of Kosc, and would therefore be favoured by OVH.

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Source : Le Figaro