Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
If I'm understanding everything, by merger they're referring to Fastweb combining with Vodafone Italia. Vodafone wont have any ownership of the combined entity, it'll be entirely owned by Swisscom. The RNS clearly states "sale" with no reference to joint venture or merger.
"Vodafone Group Plc (?Vodafone?) notes recent media speculation and confirms it is in exclusive discussions with Swisscom AG (?Swisscom?) regarding a potential sale of Vodafone Italy to Swisscom for cash.
Subject to confirming binding transaction documentation, the parties have agreed that Swisscom will acquire Vodafone Italy for an enterprise value of ?8 billion on a debt and cash free basis and subject to customary closing adjustments."
To add to my last post, all the narratives supporting Bitcoin valuations are easily argued against because they're false. The reason Bitcoin enthusiasts are so against CBDC's is because it works against the decentralised Bitcoin narrative; Bitcoin will never be adopted mainstream, because it's insecure by nature and design. The idea of making the data available to anyone and everyone who want's to set up a node is madness, since it's only a matter of time before the encryption is cracked and the chain is either broken or open to theft. Bitcoin is just a rubbish way to transact, it's fundamentally insecure and inferior to other centralised methods which come with protections and institutional backing. I've seen all the arguments reasoning why the Chain can't be broken, or this that or the other wont happen, but time and again hackers have proved themselves able to achieve the seemingly impossible; The more barriers you place in front of the hackers, the harder it is for them to achieve their goals, making all the data publicly available makes it so much easier for them. The Bitcoin community has all the hallmarks of a cult, the big institutional players will likely enjoy relieving the believers of their hard earned cash.
TOTHEMOON Bitcoin is sustained purely by sentiment and belief, what little utility it has can be performed better by alternative methods. Most investors in Bitcoin are speculative purchasers, betting on the price increasing, hence the constant rhetoric persuading people to HODL. Some very powerful figures within the financial World have bet the bank on Bitcoin, and by extension their creditors, and since money drives US politics they've managed to shape some policy decisions in favour of Crypto/Bitcoin. Even if Bitcoin went to $500,000 a Token it would still have no real world use, because the Proof of Work energy intensive method of processing transactions, and the limited number of transactions per Block, will always make it an inefficient vehicle to process transactions. Anyone can produce an alternative Token to Bitcoin, just like anyone can produce their own F art in a Jar.
Forget about AI, as that has real world uses, this could be the next big thing to replace Bitcoin. People talk about halvings, flippenings, Crypto could soon be replaced by the jarrings. There's a limited supply of this new thing and arguably it is as useful as Bitcoin, takes less energy to produce, and can be stored in your safe at home just like your cold wallet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F3r5nXu8lw
"Exactly, they and Hamas are cold bloodedly using their own people as sacrificial pawns to turn world opinion against Israel."
Not really, Israel are doing a really good job of that themselves. I'm no bleeding heart Liberal and consider myself more to the right politically, than center, but looking at the evidence Israel have kicked millions of Palestinians off their ancestral land, penned them into a small strip of land, managed all their resources and given them little hope for the future; Gaza is nothing more than a prison with no guards on the inside and allowing the inmates to run the interior. Gaza has a dystopian feel to it, reminds me of the City prison in the film Escape from New York.
Then you have the West Bank where Israel are an occupying force, with settlers systematically evicting Palestinians off their land to build illegal settlements, with the settlers backed up by the IDF; The Israeli Government facilitate the illegal settlements by enforcing an apartheid regime, where Palestinians are second class citizens in what's supposed to be their own territory. Anyone who defends Israel must suffer from tunnel vision, because as far as I can tell they are probably one of the most oppressive regimes on the planet if you're unlucky enough to be a Palestinian living there.
NOFEAR if you're interested in On Exchange vs Off Book, these charts may interest you:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQ49B8X4hFFdtXb6WUx45CDRcgMt5FBglgZCFc5UnApKRpOX8cznaVjvfKeIWdC6xr70q5wCbdhpFe7/pubchart?oid=570999884&format=interactive
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQ49B8X4hFFdtXb6WUx45CDRcgMt5FBglgZCFc5UnApKRpOX8cznaVjvfKeIWdC6xr70q5wCbdhpFe7/pubchart?oid=2070430100&format=interactive
Total Voting Rights show an increase of 3,410,113 for February 2024
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS0oSavIsBjHgD7k6NMyk7Z591Cm2IrevvLI-Jq95gOmESrOI0Vi_NhA8LIO9rMz90Y5zCOCoFuEItG/pubchart?oid=1812824850&format=interactive
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS0oSavIsBjHgD7k6NMyk7Z591Cm2IrevvLI-Jq95gOmESrOI0Vi_NhA8LIO9rMz90Y5zCOCoFuEItG/pubchart?oid=1451011517&format=interactive
As far as I'm concerned it didn't matter who the new CEO was; As long as they keep to the current strategy, which I believe to be correct. BT don't need a big personality, they need someone who'll maintain the current heading full steam ahead. The market has pushed Telecoms into the bargain basket for its own reasons, a lot of potential CEO's, with over inflated opinions of themselves, will shy away from Telecom companies for that reason.
Https://investors.vodafone.com/sites/vodafone-ir/files/2023-11/Vodafone-H1%20FY24-Results-Announcement.pdf
"Net debt increased by €2.9 billion to €36.2 billion (€33.4 billion as at 31 March 2023). This was primarily driven by the free cash outflow of €2.0 billion and equity dividends of €1.2 billion.
Current liquidity, which includes cash and equivalents and short-term investments, is €11.2 billion (€16.0 billion as at 31 March 2023). This includes €3.8 billion of net collateral which has been posted to Vodafone from counterparties as a result of positive mark-to-market movements on derivative instruments(€4.6 billion as at 31 March 2023)."
There's no way Vodafone would agree to 100p to 105p, it dramatically undervalues the company. Any entity would have to bid in the region of £2 to come close to being taken seriously. If the sale of Spain and Italy goes through, it would likely bring the Net Debt figure down to around €20 Billion. Vodacom is worth around €9.5 Billion, with Vodafone's share of that being around €6.1 Billion, then you have all the other parts like the Germany, UK, Turkey, Vantage Tower shareholding and other bits like Mpesa, etc, and that's just off the top of my head. Even £2 a share seems cheap to me.
The Net Debt figure will drop simply as a result of holding more cash on the balance sheet
This is where things currently stands according to Vodafone's Bonds outstanding (EU and US) page:
https://investors.vodafone.com/debt-investors/bonds-outstanding-eu-and-us
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRA1ndHTf_Bz7O_moDxmcbWnEtcusZucUu6lEJvm3O4mGooeH4ErFjRqot3RQHBaVXCgoUED1k2CUVK/pubchart?oid=17624073&format=interactive
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRA1ndHTf_Bz7O_moDxmcbWnEtcusZucUu6lEJvm3O4mGooeH4ErFjRqot3RQHBaVXCgoUED1k2CUVK/pubchart?oid=1681133451&format=interactive
Something else to consider is that Vodafone transferred Vodafone Italy's Towers into INWIT around 2019/20, and subsequently transferred their INWIT shareholding into Vantage Towers; So the Vodafone Italy sale shouldn't include any Tower assets if I'm understanding things correctly.
Https://www.lse.co.uk/ShareShortPositions.html?shareprice=VOD&share=Vodafone
"If i had to guess I'd say about 2b Eur, UK is 2.5b but Italy is 2/3 of the size"
Beo no doubt you have a far greater in depth understanding of accounts than I do, but are you overcomplicating something that's simple. Does Italy have any Financial Debt? Because I can't see anything in Vodafone's documentation mentioning any Financial Debt in respect of Italy, with all the Debt accounted for at Group level within the Free Cash Flow calculation.
Italy will have Liabilities, like leases, but they will transfer with the business along with things like Spectrum licences. Is it not reasonable to assume that Vodafone will receive €8 Billion in cash, keep hold of any debt at Group level and Swisscom will take ownership of any Liabilities directly associated with the Italian business onto their books?
In the RNS it says the deal will go through on a "debt and cash free basis ", so I assume Vodafone wont transfer any debt onto the Italian business as part of the deal, and Vodafone will receive any outstanding cash on the balance sheet when the deal closes; So Vodafone will receive sale cash of €8 Billion plus whatever cash may be sitting on the Italian business balance sheet when the deal goes through; With any liabilities, like leases, then becoming the responsibility of Swisscom.
Does that make sense?
Beo looking at the segmental results and analysis, they don't appear to allocate Debt to specific businesses within the group, at least I couldn't find any reference to it. Vodafone appear to account for their debt in the Group Cash Flow statement, so Vodafone will receive the full amount under this deal and any debt will likely be accounted for elsewhere.