Member Info for fleccy

It's difficult to say, there are alternatives like OneWeb, Kuiper, and High-Altitude Platforms. HAPS as an alternative to LEO and can utilise 5G Frequencies to provide service and then backhaul using LEO's. One Web operates at twice the altitude of Starlink and uses Polar orbits. Because of the higher altitude of OneWeb satellites, they'll possibly need less, with the tradeoff being higher latency. I would think the latency issue wouldn't be a problem for Aircraft and ship communications. I think OneWeb are going to focus on business applications, so communication providers as mentioned above, may use 5G to offer a local broadband service to their customers and use the OneWeb satellites as the backbone link. There is a use for LEO services, I'm just not sure about the Starlink business model of providing service directly to the end user.

"How is this a safe place to park money?"

How is it not?

"Now come on fleecy, stop splitting hairs,we all make typos. Stick to your point please, which you normally make very well in my opinion. Have a good day."

Toff makes a point of calling me Fleecy, most recently on the BT chat page. I'm afraid it's guilt by association for Gary; Defending Toff while calling me Fleecy demanded a response. no hair splitting on my part.

"Fleecy - I have been reading Toff's posts on various boards for a long time & he / she is certainly a person worth paying attention to."

Gary, the fact you called me Fleecy instead of Fleccy tells me you don't pay attention to detail. Vodafone have been in debt since they were formed. They could have completely wiped out the debt with the sale of their stake in Verizon Wireless but chose not to. I have no idea why Telecom companies maintain debt on their books, as they could reduce it over time should they wish. I know BT recently used the debt as a poison pill when it was speculated Drahi was making a move, maybe it has something to do with that.
I suspect Vodafone will look at reducing debt going forward, as the market has issue with it, not because they need to.

"I really can’t see too much value in Voda. They’re running the company like Truss & Kwasi ran the country. I see a dividend cut as inevitable- a probable rights issue - and a future shareprice of 50p"

Toff, obviously you know more about Vodafone's financial position than the CEO Nick Read, who is a qualified accountant. Clearly your post is worded to put the frighteners on unsure prospective buyers and nervous holders. Vodafone have had numerous opportunities to drop the dividend to zero, but haven't, personally I'd live with a dividend cut if it was deemed necessary. In the case of a rights issue, I don't see that as Vodafone appear to be raising capital through spinning off assets into partnerships, like Vantage, and selling other assets like Hungary.
If Vodafone decided to drop the dividend, it would save them just over €2.473638 Billion per year. Toff, rather than speculating on here maybe you should email Margherita Della Valle, or Nick Read, and ask them why they don't deem it necessary to drop the divi.

"Is low earth still not about 500Km, so up and down that distance latency will a lot worse than getting you to your local UK host/cache site."

I'm super skeptical about Starlink, and don't see an economic case for it in all honesty, but low latency is possibly the only thing it's got going for it. Say the average orbit is 500km, that would mean the uplink time is around 1.6ms, say 2ms for the average Earth station downlink time, add the two and double gives you the round-trip delay to the Earth station, approximately 8ms if you round up. The chances are the latency for a LEO system is going to be comparable to an FTTP service.
The problems are the amount of bandwidth available within a certain geographic area, and atmospherics associated with rain fade, free path loss, etc, which limits useful usage to sp****ly populated areas without alternatives. Musk has talked about the satellites linking via lasers, this could allow less Earth stations, or specialised low latency trans-Atlantic communication which might be useful for applications like high frequency trading. Other obvious uses are mobile broadband services on ships and planes, etc, and I believe the service has been useful in Ukraine.
The technology will work, but I'm not sure the cost of maintaining a satellite constellation pay off in the end. This YouTube video is critical of Musk and talks about issues with Starlink.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaUCDZ9d09Y&t=969s

And another

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vuMzGhc1cg

"1 off bung or consolidated rise agreed? Guesses?"

A conclusion doesn't necessarily mean they'll reach an agreement, it's anyone's guess. Since BT want to reduce costs going forward, it's likely the talks include other issues beside pay. I suppose it'll depend on whether the Union believe they'll be able to sell a deal to the members, I don't imagine there's much pressure on BT to reach an agreement that's too costly.

"Moniman……..you seem to like the sound of your own voice. No one really cares about your thoughts."

He's just talking his own book, he's a vested interest like the rest of us on here. The easiest way to find a bare minimum valuation of a non-distressed company, is to subtract the total liabilities from the total asset value and add an 18% to 28% percent premium on top of the bare minimum valuation. Since Vodafone isn't in distress and currently undervalued, it'd be unlikely the management would agree a takeover based solely on the market cap plus a premium. Should a hostile bidder appear, the share price would significantly increase from the current level anyway, since the market would rerate the stock to a more sensible level.

Something that did make my ears prick up was the statement, "So we will legislate to give the Digital Markets Unit new powers to challenge monopolies and increase the competitive pressure to innovate."

I don't believe this is aimed at BT as it may have significant market power, but it isn't a monopoly. I think it may be aimed at some of the US big Tech dominating cloud and internet; My guess, for what it's worth, is that the DCMS will be looking at legislating to reduce the dominance of US big Tech within the UK. It'll be interesting to see what happens and this may be a positive for the likes of BT.

"Are you aware Vodafone’s capital market has fallen from a high of £228 billion to today's approximate £25 billion?"

I have a spreadsheet on Google sheets updating every minute, showing our losses/gains across all our share dealing accounts and ISA's; So, I'm well aware of the up to the minute valuations, with stock profit and loss shown individually and in aggregate, both in cash and percentage terms.
Across all our investments we were showing in profit pre-Ukraine war, and are down since, but time will see us back in the black. Should valuations stay low, over the next couple of years, we don't have a problem selling at a loss in the share dealing accounts as long as we've covered the trade by pre buying in the ISA's at a lower price.

"That’s something you’ll never have to worry about.
Being a hopeless investor has its upsides."

Better that than being a useless **** like you. That said, in our case as it stands, pulling in an income of around £22,000 a year tax free on our investments would suggest we're doing ok.

Good advice Larry. I'm not sure who these tax changes are aimed at, my guess is they're aimed at business owners paying themselves in dividends and landlords looking to sell in te not too distant future. The average retail investor should have ISA's. For anyone who's married, and their partner doesn't work, it's worth distributing their holdings in such a way as to maximise the annual income tax allowance, while they look at bed and ISA.

I might have been gutted by the capital gain tax changes, but since we're underwater on all the investments in our share dealing accounts, it makes no odds lol. We're looking at bed and Isa to move our investments out of our share dealing accounts, over a number of years, with the plan to buy up front in the ISA's and offset the dealing costs by selling in the share dealing accounts when the price increases, that way our holdings will be stable even if we sell at a loss in the share dealing accounts.

When I read posts like yours, it actually encourages me that Vodafone is at the bottom and can only go higher from here. A lot of posts encouraging investors to stay away is usually a contrarian indicator for share price direction. As a retail investor I own a lot of Vodafone stock, and although I've recently been topping up elsewhere, and just holding VOD, it doesn't mean I don't see value in the current price.
As I've pointed out previously, there's a contradiction between the valuations of established Telecom players and the amount of cash venture capital and private companies are injecting into building or buying infrastructure. If the established players are so bad, why is private investment into Telecom infrastructure build so healthy?
In my opinion, with so many big market players injecting cash into infrastructure, at the same time established Telecom companies have been under sustained attack by vested interest market forces. Could it be that these market titans are devaluing Telecom stocks so they can pick off chunks of infrastructure at knock down valuations? By keeping share prices down, it lowers the opportunities for raising capital through rights issues, effectively closing off one source of raising capital, so there is good reason for significant market players to hold down Telecom stock prices.
If anyone wanted proof for what I'm thinking, I can give a few examples of events shaping my view:

Telecom Italia have been pushed into merging its fixed network assets with Open Fiber, involving various investors including state-owned CDP, Macquarie and KKR. KKR actually attempted a full takeover of Telecom Italia, which would likely have led to a full breakup of the company, no doubt leading to big profits for KKR should they have succeeded.
Private Equity has been mopping up mast infrastructure everywhere, one example is the recent Vodafone deal around Vantage Towers, involving KKR and Global Infrastructure Partners.
A few years ago, BT were approached by a group of investment funds to persuade them to sell a percentage of Openreach, which appears to have come to nothing. Since then, there's have been various articles pushing more regulation on BT and Openreach, as well as articles targeting BT's duct and Pole infrastructure for separation.

Just my opinion, but Telecom stocks are currently undervalued, at some point that'll change as these significant market players will need to hype their own investments.

"Interesting! Why not hope the SP goes up nicely and spend your hard earned dividends, and live a little. Ask, why everybody is talking about Machu Picchu?"

Dividends are surplus to requirements; We reinvest the dividends in the ISA's immediately and move the dividends from the share dealing accounts into the bank account, about half and half. Going forward, the intention is to bed and ISA from the share dealing accounts and not add any more external capital, but the recent low prices were difficult to resist, so added to BT and Lloyds holdings in the share dealing accounts. My personal view is UK stocks are so cheap, it'd be a crime to not top up with the current valuations. I view it as a battle of wills with the market and since we're unleveraged, and don't need the cash, we'll just keep with the current strategy as long as it takes.

"Expecting the share price will significantly move upwards in the coming weeks and months ahead."

Hopefully not until the end of February 2023, by then my BT and Vodafone divi's will landed in the ISA's and reinvested.

This article made me laugh, due to last few paragraphs speculating over a Starlink/Apple threat to BT.

"Satellites are an obvious competitor. Starlink, which has been deployed by Elon Musk’s Space X, now provides internet services on every continent in the world and will be used to connect Tesla (US:TSLA) cars to each other. This year, Apple (US:APPL) announced plans to invest $450mn (£379mn) in satellite company Globalstar (US:GSTAR). Globalstar is already being used to operate the new iPhone 14 SOS service and this deal could lay the groundwork for Apple to move into the telecoms space."

https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/news/2022/11/15/bt-faces-down-altnet-threat/

This overestimates the bandwidth capability of Microwave/Millimeter wave, over the distances involved in LEO satellite systems. The more users using a service like Starlink, the worse it gets for other users in the same geographic area, so it'll never be any good for urban areas. In developed countries. 5G is an easy alternative to any LEO service, with good cell coverage over the entire population, but even 5G won't compete with FTTP.
Low Earth Orbit satellite service is great for sp****ly populated areas and certain mobile services like planes and ships, but it'll never compete with fixed line services.

"reed needs to be replaced by a wall street american who reacts to market fast and gets job done."

Debt has suddenly become an issue for the market, as demonstrated by recent UK Gilts fiasco, but the market builds narratives around sectors and individual companies to suit itself. If you look at the UK Telecom market, the mixed narratives highlight the manipulative nature promoted by certain media and market players.
If you look at BT, VMO2, UK Altnets, and the narratives pushed by vested interests, we're led to believe the Altnets will chip away at BT/Openreach until the company becomes a shadow of its former self. The recent ridiculously speculative story around VMO2 taking over TalkTalk highlights my point, knocking around 7/8% off BT's share price and ignoring the strength and scale of BT, but as soon as BT talks about Equinox, all of a sudden the Altnets are weak and at risk of failing because BT is wagging its tail.
I used the UK in the above example as its blatantly obvious that BT has been talked and beaten down by market vested interests, but the whole Telecom sector has been beaten down less obviously. Deutsch Telekom has outperformed others due to its T Mobile holding in the US, but that could change in a heartbeat. Chances are the whole Telekom sector narrative will change at some point, with beaten down stocks eventually outperforming.

"aviva were never 7.23 in 2018 best they were 5.09 google graphs are a joke

in 2008 they were above 7"

Admittedly I don't watch Aviva and you're correct that the price wasn't over £7 in 2017/18, but Google appear to have based their calculation on the shares issued/ Market Cap.

Currently Aviva have 2,803,088,170 issued ordinary shares:

https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/AV./total-voting-rights-8m0t5u1yrcj95ka.html

On the 12th May 2018 Aviva's share price was around £5.12 with over 4 Billion issued shares

"At 6pm on 30 May 2018, Aviva plc had 4,005,745,822 issued ordinary shares "

https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/AV./total-voting-rights-may-q5n25aoyqxq9rbn.html

In May 2018 Aviva purchased 1,271,000 shares at an average price of 512.3188p

https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/AV./transaction-in-own-shares-10ox11b639b8h3j.html

So there was around 43% more shares in issue in May 2018, with the price around £5.12 going of the RNS's. If you add 43% onto the May average price of £5.12, you get £7.32. Google have just averaged the price based on the market cap by the looks of things, either way Aviva's price must be down over 30% since May 2018 taking the reduction of shares in issue into account.

"I sold my entire holding 7 months ago here at 126p because of the debt - the market hates it and it has further to fall imo"

If Vodafone wanted to reduce the debt, they've got the tools to do it. Vodafone are likened to a hedge fund with Telecom assets, they're quite shrewd in their dealings and picked up the whole of Cable & Wireless Worldwide for around £1 Billion 10 years ago. I believe the Mannesmann takeover/merger was an all-stock deal, so the valuation of Mannesmann stock would have been relative to value of Vodafone stock at that time. My point is, Vodafone have been going for decades and have always come good in the end; I don't see any reason why the share price won't recover from the current low valuation, and I suspect the management will have a debt reduction plan. If they were ever desperate to eliminate debt, they could have wiped out their debt as a result of the Verizon Wireless stake sale, but they didn't so I assume it suits them to have debt on the books.