Member Info for fleccy

"We've had a drop from 70 to 67 and the divi payment date is the 2nd. If this holds low and the price comes off after divi payment"

Stupmy are you confusing Payment date with Ex dividend date? Ex Dividend date is where the dividend adjustment occurs, stocks tend to rise slightly on payment dates due to reinvestment.

Sorry I mean Vodafone says no:

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/iliad-says-vodafone-rejects-proposal-merge-italian-units-2024-01-31/

We all have different ways of celebrating after a win 😉

"Game, Set and Snatch for me"

Which part of that sentence involves your missus?

Something like 400 pence Larry?

"Legal certainty is a principle in national and international law which holds that the law must provide those subject to it with the ability to regulate their conduct.

The legal system needs to permit those subject to the law to regulate their conduct with certainty and to protect those subject to the law from arbitrary use of state power. Legal certainty represents a requirement that decisions be made according to legal rules, i.e. be lawful. The concept of legal certainty may be strongly linked to that of individual autonomy in national jurisprudence. The degree to which the concept of legal certainty is incorporated into law varies depending on national jurisprudence. However, legal certainty frequently serves as the central principle for the development of legal methods by which law is made, interpreted and applied.[1]

Legal certainty is an established legal concept both in the civil law legal systems and common law legal systems. In the civil law tradition, legal certainty is defined in terms of maximum predictability of officials' behaviour. In the common law tradition, legal certainty is often explained in terms of citizens' ability to organise their affairs in such a way that does not break the law. In both legal traditions, legal certainty is regarded as grounding value for the legality of legislative and administrative measures taken by public authorities."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_certainty

"Daniel Beard KC, acting for BT, has said in documents that it was legitimate for companies to “seek to maximise their profits and that they price accordingly”.

He told the tribunal on Tuesday: “I’m going to deal with what is by any measure quite a remarkable claim. It’s a claim for excessive pricing unlike any that we’ve seen by regulators exercising their regulatory powers, let alone in any standalone determination.”

He said the claimant had to prove market dominance, that prices charged by BT were excessive in regards to costs, and that those prices were unfair.

He went on: “It has to do all of that having regard to principles of legal certainty, and those are important principles.

“What we’ve heard over the past day and a half does not remotely come close to discharging that burden of proof in relation to any of those three elements.”"

https://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/class-action-case-against-bt-unlike-any-other-seen-by-regulators-tribunal-hears-b1135854.html

Stop wimping out Abject, put your money where your mouth is. You made a statement suggesting you know of other stocks that'll outperform BT, I'm asking what they are? You never know you might get lucky 😉

I've picked a few bits out of the OFCOM 2017 evidence support document, summarising the number of lines that might be referred to in the case. Here's a link to a short two page document I've put together:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k5fAQi6C5GXK4dxdUaiDt0UgsyBAJqZPKZzTaGsoMSU/edit?usp=sharing

Going off the Voice only chart, BT had approximately 1.5 million Voice only lines around Oct 2015 and approximately 1 Million Voice only lines by Q1 2017, which may have decreased further by Apr 2018. The voice only part of the claim is between Oct 2015 and Apr 2018.

Split-Purchaser is subdivided between Split-Service and Split-Supply, if I'm understanding it correctly, with Split-Service meaning BT provide a Voice only telephone line and Broadband separately; Split-Supply would most likely be a BT Telephone line and the customer receiving Broadband from a different supplier. The Split-Purchaser part of the claim has a much wider window, from Oct 2015 to Dec 2023. I find the Split-Purchaser part of the claim a bit perplexing, since a customer who has a BT line and Broadband with say Virgin Media are Voice only as far as BT are concerned, and I can understand that happening if someone wanted to use VM's faster Broadband and keep BT for Voice; I can't think of any reason why someone would have BT Voice and say TalkTalk Broadband, that'd make absolutely no sense to me, maybe someone can explain why someone might do such a thing.

Just make it your top 3 or 4 choices so that it doesn't get too messy on the chart.

Abject post your list of Stocks that'll outperform BT over the next year, and I'll make a chart to compare the daily close prices over the next 12 months.

"If you haven’t already invested in Bt , my view is invest elsewhere with a long term trajectory in mind. Other well known ftse stocks will perform better and higher more reliable return"

Abject you should produce a list of the well known FTSE stocks that will perform better and higher more reliable return. If you start a thread and list the stocks I will create a spreadsheet on Google sheets and post a link so we can measure the performance against BT over the next 12 Months.

"Given BT net debt continues to increase and as importantly the cost of servicing that debt is increasing -

a dividend cut makes sense."

To be honest FAT, the dividend is only around £751 Million a year, so a 30% cut only comes to around a £225 Million saving on the balance sheet, the most significant entries on the balance sheet are "Cash available for investment and distribution" (FY23 £6.635 Billion) and "Cash capital expenditure" (FY23 -£5.307 Billion). If they were to cancel the whole dividend it could be used to cover either the yearly lease liability cost, or the interest on the debt, but not both since each of those are in the same region as the yearly dividend.

I don't see the Net Debt as an issue, even though media commentators hype it up, so BT could easily afford to increase Net Financial Debt if they can negotiate a good interest rate, and look at paying it back when capex falls. BT aren't in the same position as Rolls Royce were during Covid, where Rolls Royce increased the shares in issue by over 4 times and had to increase Bond debt with the condition they stopped the dividends. How Rolls Royce are currently worth more than twice BT's market cap is beyond me, I just put it down to market games, maybe they succeeded in shaking out a critical mass of retail and decided it was time to pump the stock?

IP3LY thanks for your concern with reference to my age. I'm only just 62, I neither drink alcohol or smoke and I'm a total gym junkie who trains hard three times a week; On the days in between gym I do lots of countryside walks. Hopefully I have many more years of weight training and walking ahead of me, at least that's the plan, but in the event of my early demise I have a wife, children and Grandchildren who will still benefit from the investments.

If the dividends are maintained across all our stocks, held by me and my wife, then we're on target for over £27,000 tax free in dividends in the Apr 2024 to Apr 2025 tax year, so investing in dividend stocks does give some flexibility while dividends are maintained.

BT's transformation should see a dramatic drop in capex from the end of 2026 onwards, so I expect BT will start seeing significant increases in bottom line Net Profit by then, and that'll still be before I'm old enough to draw my state pension, go figure.

Does that answer your questions?

Medium term isn't something I recognise, my current view is that anything over a year is long term, just my opinion. Any fine will affect the results in the year it's levied/paid and will be short term in that respect, the long term will be determined by BT's success in its transformation and cost cutting strategy.

Stupmy and Abject, what the share price does in the short term is irrelevant, except for investors who need to sell for whatever reason. The reason I included a dividend cut in my explanation is because it's something the CEO and BOD might consider, personally I'd hate that and would rather they borrowed to cover any short term financial pressures; Irrespective of what the market media state BT's financial debt isn't that big in the scheme of things, what is important is that BT progresses with its transformation and cost cutting drive. I've been sitting on paper losses for quite a while now and its made no difference to my life, so why should I worry if BT's share price stays low for a few more years, when I believe the business is doing the right things? A paper loss might play on some people's minds, but it's water off a ducks back for me, what is important is that BT stays healthy and my paper losses eventually turn into paper gains, and possibly a capital gain should I decide to sell at some point in the future.

Abject on your first point you're correct that BT's finances are finally balanced, since they've been borrowing to make payments to cover the pension deficit. They'll have some choices around dealing with a big fine, they could possibly slow down Capex and take a bit longer with the fibre rollout, borrow to cover the fine, cut the dividend for a couple of years, or a combination of those.

On your second point, when things like this happen it's always the shareholders who take the hit one way or another, but I'm not bothered what the share price does in the short term as I have no plans to sell and might decide to top up more.

On Thursday.

For anyone interested in watching the court case, I wont be, there's a livestream link on the callclaim website:

https://www.callclaim.co.uk/

Aus Reform wont win the next general election, even though lots of people I know are voting for them. I've explained why I wont vote for the mainstream parties, in fact I'd actually welcome proportional representation rather than the current two party system, since the current politicians on both sides of the House have proved themselves to be useless.

Abject and Aus my exact words were, "Fat even if BT had to cough up the whole £1.3 Billion, it'd hurt in the short term but long term it would just be a blip", note "hurt in the short term" within that sentence, of course it will hurt.

In a fair world I don't see it being anywhere close to £1.3 Billion; I think the lawyers are trying it on by expanding the SFV class to include Split-Purchase and certain residential landline business users, and widening their claim window up to Dec 2023. OFCOM's original target was Voice Only customers and stated that Split-Purchase users are younger and more engaged. Clearly Split Purchase customers have chosen it in preference to bundling Broadband and Phone for their own reasons, not because they aren't engaged.