Vodafone - Strengthens UK Network Partnership with Telefonica

[idpickering]

· Companies have agreed non-binding heads of terms

· Intention to extend current network sharing agreement to include 5G

· Investigating options to deliver a shared, future proof fibre transmission network

· Agreement to explore options to enhance the parties' 50:50 jointly owned passive tower infrastructure

https://www.investegate.co.uk/vodafone- ... 00048181N/

[strowger]

Fascinating, in that VF UK people generally express frustration at how they have been held back by the o2 deal. O2 have been highly reluctant to spend and content to retain congested and poorly-performing network.

Still don't expect VF UK to make any worthwhile profit. Dreadful business. Don't think they've ever managed to use the tax losses they bought when they got C&W due to their inability to make any profit against which to offset them.

[Arborbridge]

Fascinating, in that VF UK people generally express frustration at how they have been held back by the o2 deal. O2 have been highly reluctant to spend and content to retain congested and poorly-performing network.

Still don't expect VF UK to make any worthwhile profit. Dreadful business. Don't think they've ever managed to use the tax losses they bought when they got C&W due to their inability to make any profit against which to offset them.

You have a bit of an axe to grind about VOD, it seems. Maybe you've been bitten by them at some point?

A person who has been a member of LMF for almost two years, made five posts in that time and two out of the five are complaining about VOD.

Now I will agree that VOD have some troubling history - e.g. the Mannesmann event, which soured their reputation for years amongst shareholders. I have an open mind - although "mindful" of the past, I'm judging by the nearer history of dividends while still not entirely happy about the Verizon changes.

The HYPers way is to stay.

Arb.

[strowger]

I hold VOD in quantity and have some reasonable insight into the business.

If you want to argue that UK isn't shite, get the annual reports out - the results are segmented by country for the most significant ones - and have a look at the last few years' P&L numbers.

Mannesmann has been great - the German business is fine, and was paid for entirely in shares - which went **up** in price after the acquisition was announced. The management at the time didn't Marconi or Energis themselves by taking on debt to do ambitious acquisitions. You can't blame management for doing acquisitions in a zeitgeit of "buy stuff or get bought and sacked" - and they distinguished themselves by buying quality assets without beggaring the business to do so. The subsequent write-off of goodwill harmed no-one, the goodwill having been bought entirely with grossly-overvalued bubble shares.

[Arborbridge]

Mannesmann has been great - the German business is fine, and was paid for entirely in shares - which went **up** in price after the acquisition was announced.

An army of shareholders revolted against it at the time. However, if as you say, the deal was great for VOD, that's rather encouraging. It suggests the management knows what it is doing rather more than shareholders like you or I.
In that case, thus encouraged by what you say, I'm quite happy to sit on my hands

Arb.

[midgesgalore]

I hold VOD in quantity and have some reasonable insight into the business.

With a userID of strowger I would expect you have a reasonable insight into the business

I hold, purchased after divesting Verizon , but have never topped up due to insufficient dividend cover
I will not be selling either.

midgesgalore

[pyad]

I'd be very wary of paying attention to industry experts or those claiming insight into a particular company.

First, they are very unlikely to be seeing the share from an HYP viewpoint.

Second, being too close is not necessarily an advantage at all, particularly in the HYP strategy. Wood, trees and all that.

Third, they may well be motivated by emotion arising from their connection with the company, being too much in love or too much in hate, and have trouble being objective.

Naturally there are exceptions but because we here cannot distinguish this, I don't think much attention should be paid to this kind of thing. I mean no offence to the reader, just that very long experience with experts or those who perhaps used to work for a company, or whatever the connection, tells me that their judgement is sufficiently often inaccurate as to render their views unreliable.

[idpickering]

Could just be market noise of course, but with the VOD share price currently down 3%, I wonder if the details of their trading statement due out tomorrow has been leaked? Either way, I'm doing nothing. I'm 'fully' invested with them, and am happy to sit tight.

Ian.

[strowger]

I strongly agree with pyad. The views of employees about the wisdom of investing in their employer are utterly worthless.

I have not offered any suggestion either way about whether or not others should invest, just a view about what is likely to come, and what to look for: efficiency measures which release value but disguise leverage, and continued crappy performance in the UK. All of VOD outside Europe is essentially a sideshow, and most of the profit in Europe comes from Germany and Italy. UK is on the same scale as DE and IT in revenues, but makes no profit. If they can fix UK even partly, the shares will soar. If DE or IT stumble badly, the dividend will go.

I suspect an "extreme HYP" of the current FTSE-100 8%+ yielders would outperform over time, despite suffering at least one complete loss. No strong view about which one is most likely to be the total loss.