Member Info for fleccy

Gary, you list liabilities as if it's all financial debt, while ignoring the fact Vodafone Revenue is on target for over €45 Billion in the current Financial Year, with H1 revenue coming in at €22.930 Billion. Liabilities include operating expenses which are covered by revenue. If you're going to paint a picture, don't show it in the dark.

According to the Daily Mail (This is Money), it was an emergency board meeting.

"Read was removed after an emergency board meeting on Sunday. It falls for the moment to Margherita Della Valle, the finance director, to sort out the mess."

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/comment/article-11504461/ALEX-BRUMMER-Vodafone-looks-like-sitting-duck-overseas-buyers.html

Why did they need an emergency Sunday board meeting to discuss and push this through in short order? The speed of the decision-making process, the quick announcement, and the rapid timeline of Read stepping down, suggests an urgency to drive all this through before the New Year. This implies something may happen in January and suggests some event happened prior to the "emergency" board meeting being called. It's anyone's guess why things are unfolding so quickly, and currently in the absence of a profit warning one possibility is a merger. You'd think an imminent profit warning would have seen it announced and used it as an excuse to oust Read, but currently there's no hint of that.

"Not really, if you believe in the Multiverse theory Verizon and Vodafone will merge somewhere, even if it isn't in this Universe"

That said it could also happen in this Universe. If you look at the pattern of events; The election of Vittorio Colao to the Verizon Board of Directors at the beginning of November, then Vodafone announcing Reads departure at the end of this year with no clear replacement as CEO and it's easy to draw conclusions, time will tell.

"Slash the dividend and have rights issue to pay down the debt...? That's my bet"

A rights issue when the price is rock bottom, dream on, no CEO would do that unless they're in the same dire straits as Credit Suisse. The dividend going, possible, rights issue highly unlikely.

"Seeing a lot of wishful thinking."

Not really, if you believe in the Multiverse theory Verizon and Vodafone will merge somewhere, even if it isn't in this Universe.

"Hello fleccy. You mention Orange as a possible merger."

It crossed my mind briefly, but I'm now almost certain it'll be a a merger with Verizon Communications lol

Bulking up the conspiracy theory.

"Verizon reappointed former Vodafone Chief Executive Vittorio Colao to its Board of Directors — his first confirmed role since leaving the Italian Parliament in October."

https://www.telcotitans.com/vodafonewatch/ex-vodafone-chief-colao-returns-to-verizon/5702.article

Coincidence?

"you also have the huge problem of Competition Law when anyone mentions the likes of European mergers"

That's why I thought about US companies without competition overlap. The speed of Read losing the CEO position and going into an advisory role in the New Year, has really started my Spidey sense tingling. The more I think about this, the more I'm convinced there's more to it than share price performance and more likely related to something big in the pipeline.

"I wonder if Amazon would be interested, as a logical next step to their world domination."

Probably more chance of that, than Narcus's suggestion of Etisalat making a bid. I can see why he mentioned Etisalat though, with Atlas 2022 Holdings Limited owning 10% of Vodafone's stock, so Etisalat already indirectly own 10% of Vodafone.

"Who can Vodafone merge with? Orange in france?"

Orange crossed my mind as a possible European company, but I'm not sure where Orange's businesses may compete directly with Vodafone's, that's why I thought of US companies, like AT&T, or Verizon. If it was Big Tech, Apple or Google may be a possibility, of course all this is just speculation.

"Takeover is definite within the realms of speculation"

Anyone who thinks my post about a possible merger/takeover for Vodafone is too speculative, look back at Vodafone's takeover of Cable & Wireless Worldwide. The timeline and events leading up to that takeover is interesting:

Gavin Darby
Vodafone PLC CEO, USA, Africa, China, Africa. 2004 – 2008.
Vodafone PLC Director, Asia Pacific - Middle East. 2008-2010

Vodafone/C&WW
15th November 2011, Announcement. Vodafone executive Gavin Darby drafted in to replace Pluthero as C&WW CEO

July 2012 Vodafone takes over C&WW

So, Darby started at C&WW late November and C&WW was taken over by Vodafone within 6 months; That was VOD taking over C&WW and shows the sort of timelines and events shaping my current thinking.

I've just got back in and had some thoughts while I was out and was looking at starting a thread titled Merger/Takeover, but I can see that Takeover's already mentioned in this thread, so I'll share my thoughts here.

What if a takeover/merger is already been agreed in principle?

Read is due to step down at the end of December but will remain in a consulting role until the end of the tax year.

One possibility is that a merger announcement comes along early in the New Year, with an announcement that the CEO of the other company will be named as the CEO of the combined company; Read will get a big consultancy fee for managing the Vodafone side of the merger, with Margherita Della Valle dealing with the day to day running of the Vodafone, during the due diligence and approval part of a deal.
Speculative, but makes sense to me, otherwise why didn't they just keep Read in place until a new CEO is found? It could be Read is making way for the other guy, so there's no battlelines drawn down the road.
It would have to be a big company, maybe one of the big US Telecom companies, or possibly a big tech company looking at moving into the Telecoms space. This is how rumours start lol.

I don't believe the share price performance is the reason Read is going, usually these things happen when the CEO and Board of Directors disagree on strategy. I expect news will leak out, explaining Read's hasty departure, big market players/investors probably already know the reason, and have driven his ousting.

"If you believe that you can buy vodacom direcly. No need to buy vodafone."

I don't invest outside of the FTSE, and I don't need to since Vodafone own over 60% of Vodacom.

"There is no need to vodafone to hold vodacom. They should just split the company in 2, and just distribute the Vodacom shares to the shareholders. Let them decide which one they want to keep."

In my opinion Vodacom is an important asset to keep, Africa is an important growth area and includes assets like MPESA. It would be madness to reduce holdings in Vodacom.

"bt cut dividend to restore the debt load. I also think new ceo should sell of holdings in Australia, Spain, Italy, Ghana and even sell down some shares in vodacom."

Why Vodacom? And why would they sell any assets with the markets current treatment of Telecom assets in general?

"Agree, this is sub 80p when dividend news drops...
Probably a decent 5 year hold."

I don't disagree about the possibility of the dividend being completely dropped, but that doesn't necessarily mean the share price will drop below 80p as a result. The way stocks have been behaving, over the last 10 years, suggests dividends make very little difference to valuations these days. Some income investment funds could dump the stock, but other players could step in to hold the price.

"i expect the new ceo to cut dividend???"

That's a possibility, but Margherita Della Valle will only be the interim CEO. There's also a possibility that someone's already lined up to step in but isn't yet available due to their current role, hence an interim CEO appointed in the meantime.

Clearly an attempt to influence the Government and OFCOM. They're probably reaching for their bed pans just in case. I assume you were implying that they're cr4pp1ng themselves at the thought of some real competition? The article lists all the usual suspects, all big players.

"Sorry but you have all lost me - what’s relevance to BT?
Thanks"

Because it's a big BDUK contract Openreach missed out on, and I think it's interesting to see the companies who are backing Altnets winning big contracts. The Telegraph article link. recently posted, shows how the Altnet Investor vested interests are attempting to influence Government and by extension OFCOM.