We would love to hear your thoughts about our site and services, please take our survey here.
Big nail in the Vodafone coffin Nicky Morgan holding onto the DCMS gig. They may as well have given the job to my dog, he probably knows more about Telecoms. Zero help for the industry from the Government for the next 5 years then.
As I said several weeks ago, anyone thinking a huge Tory majority would have any impact on this share price, doesn't understand the industry and should not be invested here.
Johnson36 have you actually studied the proposals or have you just read the headlines in The Mail/Telegraph ?
I am not a Labour voter, that does not mean ( as a VF shareholder ) that I cannot give them credit when they are able to identify a problem and suggest a solution.
BT cannot, and clearly will not, provide the massive sums needed to fix Openreach. It is extremely unlikely another private company would do so either. This is massively impacting 4G rollout in rural areas. What we are essentially creating is a 2 tier system where high speed connectivity becomes the preserve of the City of London and a few other select places, when we need high speed connectivity for business nationwide.
Despite VF buying Cable and Wireless it still relies heavily on Openreach, as do most of the other companies that piggy back off its network. I am not sure if it is still the case, but as recently as 2017 it was reportedly the biggest customer Openreach had- so is essentially pumping money hand over fist into a rival business. That is commercial suicide in the long run.
As stated, most other operators would rejoice at Openreach leaving BT ownership, and have been lobbying the Government long and hard to force the break up, especially in the light of the BT purchase of EE.
In terms of cost, the loss to HMRC is dwarfed by the current cost to the UK of having to function on broadband speeds one would normally associate with Third Word countries, especially outside of our major cities.
All of this before one takes into consideration the loss to the industry of skilled workers from the EU who have packed up and gone elsewhere to work, either because of the weak pound or because they have no right to remain. There is now a chronic skills shortage across the board and it seems like a colleague is leaving to go and work in Germany or Spain every other week at present, staff we cannot afford to lose.
The proposals from Labour are not fully fleshed out, and some of their ideas are not fully formed, but at least they are actually listening to what people in the industry are saying rather than ignoring them as this government has done for the last 4 years. Free high speed broadband for every household in the UK is not a pipe dream, it's actually achievable with investment and the ability to recruit the best staff from around the globe.
Naturally there would be limits to the free offer, with charges proposed for households or businesses that exceed an initial limit. I have not seen anything that suggested unlimited date- that would be madness
As an industry we keep waiting for the Tories to respond, but all we get is some vague promise about investment around connectivity by 2025 ( which they have already rowed back from ) but with no explanation as to how that can be delivered.
Some seriously misguided comments on this thread in relation to broadband. For the record
1) Openreach is a broken business, almost everyone in the industry knows this
2) Vodafone has long championed Openreach being separated from BT
3) The Vodafone rollout of 4G and 5G in the UK is largely dependent on Openreach upgrading Vodafone and Telefonica masts with fibre optic cable. This is done at a speed determined by Openreach, part of BT who also own EE. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to see why VF are not happy with this arrangement.
4) Irrespective of you opinion on Corbyn, Labour at least fundamentally gets the problem here, and has proposed a solution to it. If we carry on with Openreach in BT ownership and being chronically underfunded, the UK will continue to lag behind the rest of the developed world in terms of connectivity. Everyone in the industry knows this which is why some are already openly stating that while privatisation may not resolve all of our problems it as at least an attempt to create a debate around how we solve it.
5) The only thing the Tories have done for the industry is introduce a new Electronic Communications Code. This was meant to make it easier and cheaper for the networks to locate sites and to build them. However it was such a dreadfully drafted piece of legislation it has had the exact opposite effect and caused complete stagnation across the industry as the courts are now having to interpret what the legislation actually means. The early cases that have had a determination have almost exclusively gone against the networks. When they should have been rolling out a 5G network, the operators have spent 18 months in court firefighting. Another defeat in court last week is more than likely the cause of the share price drop, something people on here seem completely oblivious to.
Anyone who thinks the Tories have been good for the industry would do well to look at their share price of the Telecoms companies over the last 4 years. They have actually been a nightmare for VF and the other networks, they don't understand the industry, and have made little or no effort to understand it.
King as a fellow long term investor I have every sympathy old boy. I sold my entire holding not long before the rights issue at an average of just over 4 pence as I felt it was time to cut my losses and be done with the wretched company. It does seem like you have been done over twice unfortunately. Ramping, alas, comes with the territory, there was plenty done on this one also, people claiming to have inside knowledge or work in the industry saying this would be 40 pence by the Summer. As ever best advice is DYOR .
Agree with a lot of that but I dont think its a fact that the company will be making decent profits Nige old chap. I'd say that was an opinion. Unless you know something the rest of us dont. The company have not made good business decisions or profits for years and only got put back on the right track when forced into making decisions by the banks.
I was invested here for 2 years until a couple of weeks ago and always found Chipper and Nige two of the more interesting and informed contributors. Unlike most who speak through their wallets only, they gave honest opinions and these were well researched and expressed superbly. You dont have to be invested to offer an opinion, indeed it is sometimes better to hear views from those who are impartial. Like Nigel says Chipper was invested here at least twice that I can recall and has said repeatedly he thinks the company is on the correct road for recovery but that it faces many challenges. Nige has said the same. Hardly the words and actions of a disgruntled ex employee.
One suspects it will be a long time before we see the 13-18p predicted by many on here recently, if at all. Having sold my holding at 4p for a big loss recently I'm in two minds about the wisdom of my decision. I can see pros and cons for all concerned with yesterdays announcement it certainly appears a rum old deal that one is having to invest further to make potentially small gains. Alas I cant envisage many taking a long term plunge on this mob but GL to all who play.
Wasn't taken personally old boy, I think we have all been through the grinder with this one, and all have our target price. Hopefully some good will come of it. The wife doesn't know we hit 4p albeit briefly so I'm not in the dog house just yet !
I dont have much choice but to wait for the results now old boy, and if they are no better than last year then the price may well dip back below 3p ! I am also concerned by talk of fundraising, even if at this stage it is nothing more than rumour mongering. After 2 years of heartache with this company, and after thinking the money was gone when it dipped below 1p , I had decided to take the good lady wifes advice and cut my losses. As I said in January I made her a promise I would sell at 4p and I dont want to let her down.
I tried to sell my entire holding at 4 pence yesterday and had no joy. Missed the boat again. Even at 4p I would be taking a big loss, but just want rid of them. Not convinced the results will be much help to us if Im honest.
Absolutely no apology required Sir. I admire your optimism. I got the impression from Manksys closing comment of lesson learned that the poor chap had got his fingers burnt and had many sleepless nights here like the rest of us. I took early reirement from the civil service a few years ago along with the good lady wife. The mortgage was paid off and the kids grown up so we had money to invest before the grandchildren arrived. Apart from this wretched thing all our other investments touch wood have gone well. The stupid mistake I made here was throwing good money after bad so our initial investment of £3k here is now around 6 times that amount. I have told myself that I would hang onto the lot until the grandchildren arrive but I have to admit if we got to 4 pence again I would have to seriously consider selling.
Well I have been invested here for longer than most having first bought in at a price I am embarrassed to admit to and have managed to average my holding to just over 6 pence. I used to post a fair bit many moons ago but gave up around 18 months ago when people started attacking other posters presumably as they like me had lost a lot of money, and also because the price had sank so low I assumed this was going into Admin. I tend not to post unless I have something to say, and as I have no insight into this companys internal operations, this isnt very often. I doubt anything these days gets said on here which affects the SP so I dont understand why people get so personal. Mansky gave his reasons for selling and they seemed genuine to me, like HDX, King, Chippo, Heave etc he has been around this share longer than most and I wish the chap all the best. I hope like you that the results are good but I can also understand why someone might not want to hang around if they feel the price is right for them.
You said the other week you had been selling on peaks, I just thought it strange you having a go at someone else for doing the same a week later. Like you say a profit is a profit and if he has made one then while Im sad to see him go I'm not going to question his judgement. I wish I was in profit on these.I'm sure if you were as confident as you claim you would not have been selling at all. I hope you are right this time.
We all have a price at which we would sell and Manksy got his. Good luck to him. Maybe he has made a good decision, maybe he has not, time will tell. There may be good news in the results there may be bad. What makes you think the results will be better than last years KNIGELK and that he is wrong to sell?
Thanks King, although I'm bought in at an average of 6p I would almost certainly offload if it got anywhere near 4p. I certainly don't blame anyone for getting out before the results, it's hard to see them being any better than last years, though at least we have had some "decent" weather for HHR this week ! In my position-happy to have the money tied up long term- I actually prefer seeing a long gentle increase in the price and an identifiable trend, than the rollercoaster stuff.
I am bought in at just over 6 pence so the boat needs to keep on sailing for me. Frustrating that it keeps shooting up at the start of the week then dropping back, just hoping one week it will shoot up and keep on going. Saying that I had written my investment off as gone last year so thankful for where we are now !
Anyone buying before close on a Friday and selling lunchtime Monday must be making money every week.
Debt of £110 million is half of annual turnover, which is falling along with hire duration as the insurers continue grinding the industry into the dirt. Hard to see much encouragement there, and as somebody said if turnover falls another £12 million this year then that wipes out the Autofocus windfall. Every time the price surges I get my hopes up we could get close to the 6p I need to get out. Feels a long way off today though.Where are all the buyers ?
Awboo you are bang out of order. The whole point of this forum is to encourage a cross section of opinion and information to help people make a decision on investment. You might not like what chipf has to say but he is entitled to an opinion and most of what he has posted has made perfect sense. He has given some of us long term investors much more insight into how the company operates with his insiders view and the fact he has been cautiously optimistic about the share for several months is much more reassuring for those of us bought in at over the current price than other things that have been posted. It will be a crying shame if some of the more informed and logical members get driven away by people attacking them.