Member Info for fleccy

"Mr Drahi last month ruled out a takeover bid for at least six months, but senior insiders at BT expect him to make a big move eventually."

"French telecoms billionaire Patrick Drahi intensified his lobbying effort to reassure regulators and MPs after his raid on BT shares."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/07/18/bt-raider-calls-ex-ofcom-chief-lobbying-push/

This isn't something I normally look at, but anyone answer a question, Velo maybe?

Ok, BT's volumes are low at the moment, but Volume Bought was 7,236,933, and Volume sold was 3,049,580, so over twice as many traders buying at the ask price, than traders selling at the bid price?
My question is, why did the stock end the day down with twice as many trades going through at the asking price?
I looked at a few other stocks too, HSBA and VOD were in the same boat as BT, whereas Lloyds was also down, but showed more Volume sold than bought as you'd expect. I'm not saying there's anything wrong, I'm just trying to learn something.

"Some in BT believe his overtures to the government could indicate that he is not interested in just being a “sleeping shareholder” but is planning something more dramatic such as a takeover of BT."

“He’s also not just going to sit there with a 12% stake, saying: ‘Jolly good, you just carry on as you were.”

https://www.standard.co.uk/business/bt-patrick-drahi-ministers-kwarteng-dowden-brexit-as-trigger-for-ps2-billion-stake-buy-b945486.html

"Fleccy, do you expect that BT will sell only a stake in BT Sport or sell the whole lot?"

Not a clue. Personally I'd rather they got rid of it completely, but all I can offer is an opinion

In my common sense view of things, I can't see how there could be a case to answer, since there were alternative options available to customers. Should it go to court, it would be a highly complex case with many different variables. It's been two weeks since the two day application hearing, and we're still awaiting a decision, imagine the time a full court case will take.

"The main hearing of the CPO Application took place on 24-25 June 2021. Judgment is pending."

https://www.catribunal.org.uk/cases/13817721-justin-le-patourel

Can't be far off now.

Haha won by a nose.

I'm not a great believer in charts, maybe they were once useful in predicting human herd behavioural trends, but Algo's drive the market's now. I agree with the heading of the article, as i believe BT is undervalued and not because of the charts.

"Here’s Why BT Share Price Could Soon Soar to 250p"

https://www.investingcube.com/heres-why-bt-share-price-could-soon-soar-to-250p-shares/

Now published, and posted to help any insomniacs on here.

https://www.catribunal.org.uk/sites/default/files/2021-07/1381_JLP_hearing_transcript_Day_1_240621.pdf

https://www.catribunal.org.uk/sites/default/files/2021-07/1381_JLP_hearing_transcript_Day_2_250621.pdf

I've been intermittently checking the site and yesterday was the first day I've noticed this. Maybe the Tribunal is close to a decision.

This is what I'm talking about:

"A court case in South Korea has ended in a loss for Netflix and a victory for ISPs in the country, which may now be empowered to levy bandwidth usage fees on traffic-gobbling streaming platforms. The decision is likely to be challenged, as it essentially saddles the new wave of streaming services with ISP-negotiated rents just as the market is exploding."

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/korean-court-sides-against-netflix-215722251.html

"But I think level 1-4 aren’t. I also agree that lots of UK stocks are bargain basement but they have been for quite a while, also FTSE was pottering around the higher 6000-7000 mark, mostly for the past 7 odd years getting close to mid 7000s on a few occasions only to fall back abruptly to sub 7000."

I watch the finance channels every morning, and the narrative is changing. Lots of stories are coming out, with analysts stating UK stocks are cheap, and eyed up by bargain hunting funds and Private Equity. It doesn't really matter to me what the market thinks, I invest where i personally see value. I'm just going to keep topping up my favourites and take a long term view.
The US stock market's a risk, it's been on steroids for years, but you wouldn't think that it was overvalued to listen to the US presenters. What I don't like is the way some companies are pumped up to stratospheric valuations, giving them the option to sell stock to fund takeovers of potentially more profitable companies.
In my opinion big tech should be put in its place, it's about time national Governments allowed telecom companies to charge the tech titans for bandwidth across the network as a whole. Net Neutrality needs an overhaul, since streaming and tech giants are forcing telecoms companies to ever increase core and backbone capacity, which may even contribute to increasing the UK's carbon footprint. I've read that Ofcom are looking at the issues around Net Neutrality, Bandwidth Utilisation, and network power consumption associated with the tech giants online services, maybe things will change soon. It wouldn't be classified as a digital tax, but it could transfer a percentage of the costs from the telecom companies to the likes Google, Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, etc, which would allow the telecoms companies more profit at the expense of the FAANGS.

"I guess IF we get to autumn and things look better than worst case, then who knows."

I don't see any more lockdowns, going off Government statements. The narrative being pushed is that we're going to have to learn to live with the virus. It's right what the government are saying, most people have had enough of lockdowns and Government are going along. Obviously should a killer strain emerge, that defies all vaccination attempts then things will change, but that scenario is highly unlikely.
My personal view is that certain UK stocks are still in bargain basement territory, and present buying opportunities for anyone willing to search out the ones they like.

"Fleecy you said"

When someone starts a post directed at me, with "Fleecy", I immediately think Troll since some on here think it's a way of winding me up, the truth is it just weakens their argument from my point of view.
It's easy to move call centre staff onto a working from home basis, especially for a Telecom company like BT. Even Network Operations can be run from a Home Office, so any desk based role can be run on a working from home basis. I've worked in a Network Operation Centre role, which included working from home in a second line escalation role, so anything that can be done in the company office can be done at the home office. Before I worked in Network operations, I worked as a Field Maintenance Engineer, and over the years the company tried various ways of working, including letting Engineers be based from home. If BT wanted to close the majority of their office based call centres it wouldn't be difficult, and Covid has hastened a move in that direction for many companies. My son is a App developer/programmer and has worked from home for the last year, he is now being told he has to work in the office 3 days a week, not because his job can't be done from home, but presumably because of the impact working from home is having on city centre small businesses. Needless to say, my son isn't happy being forced back into the office, I suspect the Government are pulling some strings in the background. Should BT decide to allow all their call centre staff to work from home, I don't see the CWU having an issue with that, and any online security issues can be dealt with using locked down dedicated laptops connected to monitors, with VPN connectivity into the company network.
As far as anything BT did years ago, around Work Force Management, we're in a different world now with, arguably, a different BT.

Hey fleccy, what about UAX or TXE2?

Haha, I'm not that old, although I was a Radio Relay Tech in the Royal Signals and the Automatic Exchanges, the TE techs worked on, were pretty ancient.

Here's another article talking about BT closing 4600 "pubs or store rooms", sorry I mean Exchanges.

"Openreach Consult on Closure Plans for 4,600 UK Exchanges"

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/12/openreach-consult-on-closure-plans-for-4600-uk-exchanges.html

Makes me wonder if any of you B.T investors have ever been in an exchange "

I haven't worked for BT, but I've been in sites with system X exchanges and replaced cards and worked on system X Remote concentrators, but for a different provider. I used the term Exchange loosely, I could have used CTV terminology like Head End.

"BT has outlined plans to end two-thirds of its 5,600 telephone exchange leases with owner Telereal Trillium. The centres are expected to become redundant as the telecoms giant rolls out fibre upgrades across the country. BT entered into a 30-year agreement with Telereal Trillium in 2001 following a £2.38bn sale"

https://www.egi.co.uk/news/bt-to-end-3700-telephone-exchange-leases/

Anything further to add Douggzy?

Ultimately BT will do whatever they need to do. I suspect all the buildings no longer required will still be closed, but staff given the option of working from home where feasible, Covid's proved that the working from home model works, so it probably suits BT to move in that direction. Since most of the building closures will likely affect unmanned sites anyway, there's probably no impact on CWU members, and where Exchanges earmarked for closure are staffed, they'll probably relocate the Engineers into different roles, within the same geographic area. The PSTN switch off isn't until the end of 2025, so BT have plenty of time to work out how to help out the younger Switch Engineers, who work on the Exchanges. The older dinosaurs will likely want to go anyway, rather than retrain, so I don't see this as changing anything. Of course this is just my opinion.

"What’s impact of India operations ? Any more liabilities?"

I seem to remember Vodafone has already written down their India operations, sating that they wont invest any further cash there. The India Government has done everything possible to make life easy for Jio, and difficult for the rest.

"But the fact is that regardless of this apology, the bigger issue is that Vodafone has written off their India investment to zero. Also, the buzz is that neither Vodafone nor Aditya Birla Group, the other owner of Vodafone-Idea, is keen to bring in new money into the company."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-50429844

Should have typed my last post a bit faster, was distracted by other stuff lol. My BT and Lloyds shares are looking a bit sad currently, Vodafone down too, but not quite as bad. Must be the 3rd/4th wave fear, can't think of anything else.