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Fleecy, yesterday you compared the “annual dividend savings” made possible by the buyback with the amount of money that Vodafone could earn if it banked 4Billion. While the comparison is purely theoretical, the figures are interesting.

In my opinion the two figures are not directly comparable, because one is after tax, the other one is before tax.

The annual dividend savings (€218,414,635) are after tax, because dividends are paid out of net earnings.

On the other side, I suppose that the amount that Vodafone could earn if it banked the 4B (€240,000,000) is before tax.

Pokerchips, I don't unserstand your point.

My point is very simple.

If a company does a buyback, this does not change the net earnings of the company.

The buyback reduces the number of shares outstanding.

Therefore, earnings per share go up.

Everything else being equal, the price of the shares should go up.

Dividends are a different issue.

If the company pays a dividend, it can keep the same dividend per share, while lowering the total dividend expense. This is another advantage of buybacks.

March 19 (Reuters) - Vodafone Group PLC (VOD.L):

* VODAFONE : VOXI BY VODAFONE HAS LAUNCHED A NEW LARGE LANGUAGE MODEL (LLM) GENERATIVE AI CHATBOT IN COLLABORATION WITH ACCENTURE

KenRow, I think Gohanito has already answered.

Anyhow, I had already prepared this example, therefore I post it.

Let’s assume that the market value of a company is £10 million.

There are 10 million shares; each share is worth £1.

Let’ assume that the net profit of the company is £1 million.

Therefore, P/E=10

Now let’s buy back shares worth £5 million. For simplicity, assume that the stock price doesn’t change during the buyback period. At the end of the buyback period, as you correctly says, the company has zero cash and has bought 5 million shares; let’s cancel those shares. Apparently, the result is a company worth £5 million (because cash is now zero), with 5 million shares, each worth £1.

However, the net profit of the company is still £1 million (there is no reason why that should change). That would imply P/E=5. For P/E to remain unchanged, the stock price should go up to £2,

However, it is reasonable to expect a stock price between £1 and £2, for two reasons: 1) the stock price will probably start to go up when the company starts the buyback, therefore fewer shares can be bought; 2) the company has less cash and therefore it is riskier.

KenRow, my post was partly wrong, but the correct answer lies in between.

I’ll try to explain it later because I’m out for a walk.

KevRow, I think there is a mistake.

You write:

If I have a company worth £10 million and it has 10 million shares at a £1 each, using £5 million of the company’s cash to buy back 5 million shares means I'm left with a company worth £5million with 5 million shares worth £1 each.

It should be:

If I have a company worth £10 million and it has 10 million shares at a £1 each, using £5 million of the company’s cash to buy back 5 million shares means I'm left with a company still worth £10million (in the balance sheet of the company cash is substituted by the 5 million shares). The residual outstanding 5 million shares are now worth £2 each.

Then there is a consequence for dividend payout. Assuming that the companies pays a dividend, every shareholder will continue to receive the same dividend, but the total dividend bill will be cut by half.

There is at least an important shareholder that certainly does not like the new strategy, and that is Xavier Niel. Probably he had bought puts to protect his investment in Vodafone and now he’s selling his stake.

Probably both. Besides, he certainly already owns or will receive at least as many Vodafone shares based on the incentive plan. To me that means that he really believes in the buyback story.

Volumes very low until now

73.1p for me please Roofer.

Thank you KevRow, that's the source I had found.

Apparently no other sources are reporting it.

Anyway, I think it's relevant.

This morning I read that Vodafone and Swisscom will probably close the agreement by the end of this week (Il Sole 24 Ore). Did you find similar news?

Vodafone and Swisscom will probably close the agreement by the end of this week, says the Italian newspaper il Sole 24 Ore

This Vodafone bond has maturity 2079. Its price has not moved today.

https://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/bond/us92857wbq24-vodafone-group-plc-7-19-79

The long term Vodafone bond with the worst performance I could find matures in 2053 and is also denominated in US$. Its performance today was -0.33%.

I don’t know why the stock performed badly today, but the reason does not seem related to the long term viability or profitability of Vodafone.

Management made it clear that the rationale for selling Spain and Italy is that these countries do not earn the cost of capital. Assuming that Spain and Italy are sold, the ratio debt to ebit will decrease significantly. Besides, there is a general agreement that the ECB will reduce interest rates in the foreseeable future; should Germany enter a recession, a significant reduction of interest rates is likely to occur, because Germany is a key player in the ECB. Time changes perspective, also for the better.

Jesteh, you are making very bold predictions! Based on what? Sure you must have a very reliable source to say that Vodafone will not cut the dividend but will probably sell Germany for 10B.

All the best

73p (unchanged) for me please Roofer.

By the way, I like your definition of “fence methodology”.

Congratulations Roofer, well done! I notice that you won also on February 16th.

Maybe collecting all those predictions puts you in a privileged position.

73.0 p for me please Roofer

I think fleccy has already answered , but the 36.2 B net debt figure can be found also in this presentation, appendix VI

https://investors.vodafone.com/sites/vodafone-ir/files/2023-11/Vodafone-H1%20FY24-Results-Presentation.pdf