If you would like to ask our webinar guest speakers from WS Blue Whale Growth Fund, Taseko Mines, Kavango Resources and CQS Natural Resources fund a question please submit them here.
London South East prides itself on its community spirit, and in order to keep the chat section problem free, we ask all members to follow these simple rules. In these rules, we refer to ourselves as "we", "us", "our". The user of the website is referred to as "you" and "your".
By posting on our share chat boards you are agreeing to the following:
The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. As a user you agree to any information you have entered being stored in a database. You agree that we have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic or board at any time should we see fit. You agree that we have the right to remove any post without notice. You agree that we have the right to suspend your account without notice.
Please note some users may not behave properly and may post content that is misleading, untrue or offensive.
It is not possible for us to fully monitor all content all of the time but where we have actually received notice of any content that is potentially misleading, untrue, offensive, unlawful, infringes third party rights or is potentially in breach of these terms and conditions, then we will review such content, decide whether to remove it from this website and act accordingly.
Premium Members are members that have a premium subscription with London South East. You can subscribe here.
London South East does not endorse such members, and posts should not be construed as advice and represent the opinions of the authors, not those of London South East Ltd, or its affiliates.
"BT faces a decision: does it let the French fox into the hen house?"
The fox (Drahi) is already in the hen house. So Drahi can see the value in BT, shame for so long now that the analyst failed. Further down the line we may have a bidding war on our hands if both Altice & Deutsche Telekom intensions are full control. One way or another this can only lead to a higher share price for long suffering shareholders, there may finally be a light at the end of the tunnel.
Yes Bkkbkk, One thing is certain, BT are not at the mercy of Market Makers any more but Market Forces. BT has become more of an attractive prospect and less risk involved (pension and OFCOM news) it’s been undervalued for ages but a series of good news this past 3 months has enabled a scramble for a piece of the pie. It’ll be interesting to read what the analysts have to say.
Drahi may well be a fox but philip is no fool he will use drahi to bts benifit philip wants fast drastic change to improve bt drahi will help with this . Will dt sit back and let this happen who knows
Now the city boys have had the weekend to mull over this interesting times ahead , drahi could still stage a takeover in 6 months , push to float openreach etc
Interesting times ahead as this unfolds
Cont.....
He sold an early French venture to John Malone, America’s “cable cowboy”, using some of the proceeds to found Altice in 2001. He grew it aggressively, winning a €17 billion bid war in 2014 for SFR, one of France’s biggest mobile phone companies, despite protests from government officials. The SFR deal exemplified Drahi’s debt-fuelled model of buying companies with poor cashflow and cutting costs to juice up profits.
Shortly after the takeover, Altice told SFR suppliers to halve their prices. It suspended contracts with several; union leaders claimed there were shortages of printer paper and toilet rolls.
Drahi bought a 70 per cent stake in US cable operator Suddenlink a year later, valuing it at $9.1 billion, and took over Cablevision for $17.7 billion soon after.
Drahi has said he has no intention to bid for BT, and there is no reason to doubt him — not least because a French takeover of a nationally sensitive asset would go down like a stale croissant while Emmanuel Macron is rattling his sabre over Northern Ireland. But you shouldn’t think Drahi would be daunted by BT’s £19 billion market cap; four years ago, he toyed with a $185 billion bid for Charter Communications, America’s second-biggest cable group. An art collector, he forked out $3.7 billion for auction house Sotheby’s in 2019.
The fox has been sniffing around the BT hen house for some time. Drahi has known Clive Selley, the head of BT’s Openreach broadband network, for years — and, in 2019, he visited Philip Jansen, then newly installed as BT chief executive, in London. He offered to help BT with its full-fibre broadband roll-out, pointing out that Altice had experience plugging in millions of homes a year. Those talks fizzled out, and it’s not clear why Drahi waited until now to pounce — BT’s shares, which traded at almost 500p in 2015, slumped to less than 100p last year amid pessimism over its chances of getting a decent settlement in the next market review by regulator Ofcom. They had risen to 192p by Friday.
Drahi is thought to have begun building a 2.9 per cent stake, below the public-disclosure threshold, about three months ago. He then struck last week, buying more through Morgan Stanley and BNP Paribas from multiple sellers, borrowing some and using derivatives. Senior Morgan Stanley bankers Jean Abergel and Franck Petitgas, the latter awarded France’s Légion d’Honneur in 2012, have been advising closely.
Gigabit-capable broadband”, “levelling up agenda”— it’s nice of PR firm Tulchan, where former Tory Party chairman Lord (Andrew) Feldman is managing partner, to teach a visiting Frenchman a few key English phrases. Billionaire telecoms tycoon Patrick Drahi arrived on BT’s shareholder register last Thursday signalling that he came in peace, issuing a statement that ticked political boxes and reassured the management team he was supportive.
Drahi’s private comments are said to have matched his public ones. But more telling than what he said is what he did: he pulled off an elaborate stealth raid to buy 12.1 per cent of the former state telecoms monopoly before the market realised what was going on. That 12.1 per cent is 0.04 per cent more than the 12.06 per cent owned by Deutsche Telekom, now eclipsed as BT’s biggest investor. While Tim Höttges, Deutsche’s chief executive, is said to have reacted with amusement, those four basis points say something about Drahi’s personality. They are a flash of ego — of a liking for throwing down gauntlets. The founder of Altice, a broadband and cable TV empire with 75,000 staff and more than 40 million customers, came onto the scene dressed in a cuddly outfit — but he is a fox, and BT should be on guard.
Drahi, 57, the Moroccan-born son of maths teachers, is a sophisticated deal-maker and builder of businesses.