Category Archives for "Telecom"

AT&T spins out Warner Media – focus on the pipes rather than the sewage!

I’ll say this for new CEO, John Stankey, he’s got balls to spin off the $100bn Warner Media business his predecessor had bought only back in mid 2018. Presumably given John had managed the business briefly ahead of being elevated to COO and then to CEO, he either didn’t like what he saw, or saw […]

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European Telecom sector – protracted investment cycle, or just a value trap?

Do telcos have pricing power; is the sector at the cusp of an upswing as it comes out of a protracted investment cycle, or just a value trap? For those despairing at the billions already being chucked at 5G licences (€6.5bn last week in Italy) before they’ve extracted much of a return from 4G, one […]

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Comcast’s buyers curse

“Accept the Recommended Comcast Offer Immediately”[!!!] If I was a Comcast shareholder I would be concerned about the apparent enthusiasm with which the Sky board were recommending that their shareholders accept their managements revised offer for Sky.  Whoever was pulling the strings over at Sky (Murdoch, Disney?), they have played a blinder; extracting a 125% […]

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AT&T Time Warner offer – OK with judge, but now less so for TWX shareholders

Time Warner shareholders may feel a sense of relief that the AT&T bid is now clear to proceed, but the harsh reality is that they are being screwed.  Time value and a declining performance and share price of AT&T has seriously eroded the original offer premium to … ZERO. Indeed, it could be strongly argued […]

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Wazzup today in the markets – 11th May 2017

  BT Group (bt_a_l) – Q4 & FY17 results:  Markets seem finally to get the message        . Vivendi  (viv_pa) – Q1 FY17 results:  + Offer for Havas – a compliance red flag!        . NIBE Industrier AB (nibe-b_st) – Q1 FY17 results: A rebound in organic sales, but…..     […]

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Vodafone – Recovery play or just a value trap?

Are super-low interest rates good for capital intensive businesses such as the Telcos? Intuitively, the answer seems obvious, in that lowering funding costs ought to improve the marginal returns from employing that capital. An analogy might be with fuel prices for airline stocks, with again a seemingly clear inverse relationship. In both cases however you might […]

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AT&T confirms $107.5 agreed offer for Time Warner Inc – GrowthRater NPV of $102 ps incl 50:50 completion assumption

The initial flurry of newswire headlines (*1. see end of article) seemed to focus on the offer price of $107.50 per Time Warner share, with the narrative that AT&T was overpaying. I disagree. The bid is sensibly pitched. The issue markets should be focusing on instead, is whether the bid will ever reach completion in […]

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