Member Info for fleccy

Patourel is just a front man, class actions are big business for the litigation funders.

As I understand it, the CAT found in favour of BT due to customer perception relating to BT's Brand value. It's a bit like my wife going into a high class Handbag shop and buying a Louis Vuitton Handbag, and then taking Louis Vuitton to court because she sees a similar looking bag on sale in ASDA for £30; Clearly she would lose the case because Louis Vuitton is recognised as a more expensive brand of handbag. People stay with BT because they trust the brand, even though they pay more for the service. My guess is that any appeal request would have to produce evidence disputing the CAT's opinion, that people don't mind paying more to use BT because they prefer the brand, how would you prove something like that?

The Movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73fVKNebwr8

Like I said PRK I'm invested in both Vodafone and BT, for different reasons. If Vodafone had been superior to EE in capturing market share, why has OFCOM and the CMA allowed the Vodafone UK/Three merger? Wasn't the merger waved through on the premise that Vodafone UK and Three as standalone entities couldn't compete against the VMO2 and EE? I don't have any favourites, I want them both to do well, but BT has the advantage because of their UK national infrastructure coverage; That's just the way it is.

"I can see CF being the new Mercury… remember them?"

Mercury was part of Cable & Wireless PLC and was aimed at being a direct competitor to BT for business customers. They used Microwave Radio and Fibre (City Centres) for connecting customer sites. Mercury/Cable & Wireless were actually a Cable company consolidator, taking over many of the Cable companies when they got into difficulties, before selling them on to NTL. Mercury isn't a good comparison with the Altnets, a better comparison is the Cable companies MCL/C&W temporarily owned. Mercury didn't disappear, it was just rebranded under the C&W banner. Cable & Wireless PLC eventually split into Cable & Wireless Communications and Cable & Wireless Worldwide. Cable & Wireless Worldwide was eventually taken over by Vodafone and Cable & Wireless Communications was taken over by Liberty Global.

"In this case, the game is only about growth"

Well it's massive amounts of cash directed into the Altnets with no guaranteed growth in connections. At some point debt has to be paid and the interest on that debt either gets paid or accumulates. When the FTTP Gold rush started, the Altnets figured that BT would just rest on its laurels and eek out as much profit as possible from FTTC, but BT has instead ploughed massive amounts of resource into Fibering out the majority of the country. Reading between the lines, the Altnets and their backers are a bit irked by this and think they have some sort of right to steal BT's lunch, which of course they don't. I have no idea how all this will pan out, but the Cable company upstarts of the 1980's up to today give a clue as to how things may unfold.

Personally I think CityFibre's business plan is misguided, they could have followed the Netomnia route and took advantage of PIA, time will tell if CityFibre have made a mistake.

"My guess about the fluctuations on Barclays shareholding would be just client transactions on VOD shares in nominee accounts?"

Doubtful, if that was the case then you'd expect to see lots of RNS's from other Brokers; For example, I'm with a large broker and I don't see regular RNS's from them. It's more likely that they're acting on behalf of a single big client who's building a large holding.

"Focusing on City Fibre making a profit, is to badly misunderstand the business of City Fibre, where it is and where it’s trying to get to"

Explain?

"Bertram - obviously you can see who brought up Brexit …. Wasn’t me."

Actually Aus you brought it up first on the 10th July, which is why I referenced Brexit in my post. Although you might not have been the first in this thread, you brought it up first the other day. As far as your suggestion that I'm misinformed, I think I've got an open mind and question all my own views on things. Reform are topping the polls and displacing Conservative and Labour councillors, it's clear to see that the next election will be between Reform and Labour and since Labour are making a complete hash of things, it isn't far fetched to suggest that Farage will be the next UK PM.

"RE: Truth?10 Jul 2025 18:51

Snoopz. If you are that blinkered I’m not going to bother arguing

But I can point out more lies and misinformation than you can count

Virtually everything about Brexit the EU was misinformation, they didn’t fact check £350m per week did they or all the nonsense about the EU. For starters EU didn’t rule over the British, we have a royal family for that. Neither did they govern uk. Parliament waved through EU regulations because they didn’t matter in British law, British law defines what you can’t do, where most European countries define what you can do, so by default Uk law already covered it. Can go on and on"

"But you need to look at recent Conservative governments who created policy’s not to solve immigration but to move away from facts"

That's why the Conservatives are all but dead. People have completely lost faith in all the "mainstream" political class, which is pushing everyone to the fringes. Most people have stopped listening to mainstream politicians, suggesting that they've managed to push the UK population into a state of Cognitive bias, because the politicians stopped listening to the mainstream population's view's.

Take Brexit as an example, where the majority voted to leave the EU; Instead of the political class listening and acting on the majority view they went into open warfare in Parliament and dragged it out for years, trashing belief in democracy. The Brexit vote was about sovereignty and the view that the country is heading in the wrong direction, the politicians weren't listening. If Brexit failed it's because the EU was united and the UK Parliament was divided, with many UK politicians working with the EU to overturn a democratic vote. The politicians have dug themselves into a hole and don't know how to get out, I believe that Reform will win the next General Election.

Aus I'm at a loss to understand why you defend uncontrolled migration into the UK, unless you don't actually live here. When I drive through the local town, it's like travelling though a theme park attraction depicting the United Nations and when I'm in the gym half the conversations, among other attendee's, are in a different language. It seems to have got worse over the last year, I'm noticing lots more Africans in addition to the already high local Muslim population.

As far as I can tell immigration is totally out of control and needs sorting out urgently. Government policy over the last 30 years is to blame, with an open door migration policy it feels like we're taking part in some sort of lab experiment to see how far they can push multiculturism without breaking the country.

England is overpopulated, the dinghies coming across from France are leaving a country with a population density of 122 people per sq km, whereas England has a population density of 438 people per sq km; Overpopulation means a lower quality of life with less space to breathe and although more population may increase the countries GDP, it's GDP per capita that really counts. Because we live in an overpopulated country it means we have to live in smaller houses with smaller gardens, put up with more congestion on the roads, wait longer for hospital appointments and watch the decline of NHS Dentistry. The argument about immigration being necessary to make up for an aging population is false, because the population would have found it's own balance without massive immigration into the country and what happens when all the new arrivals age, do you bring in more? The UK now relies on imports to feed itself, yet the politicians ignore the voters by changing nothing and continuing to add more population in the hope it'll somehow keep the music playing, I would suggest that overpopulation is a National Security threat. We're like the Old Lady who swallowed a Fly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0_4hkfR7WE

I've decided I'm voting Reform at the next election, because I don't trust the mainstream politicians to sort this out, I think the UK has a weak political class and the country needs a more aggressive stance.

Anyone know why Barclays are doing the Hokey Cokey with Vodafone shares?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAMYsNe7DMQ

"What are they expecting to sell?"

BT will continue to sell what they're currently selling, Telecom services. Telecoms is all about scale, the only way the Altnets will be able to compete with BT is through consolidation and scaling up, consolidation can be expensive involving streamlining Network interworking, work practices, Engineering skillsets, etc. In my opinion, the talk suggesting that BT will be swept away by the competition is a misguided narrative pushed by a market that is purely narrative driven these days.

As an example look at VMO2, historically it was formed from the ashes of various cable companies who were in a financial black hole and going bust, they were mopped up by Cable & Wireless and were later sold off to NTL as a combined entity, C&W probably decided it was easier to sell than proceed down the consolidation path. NTL merged with Telewest and rebranded to Virgin Media and more recently with O2 to become VMO2. After all that, VMO2 only earns around half the revenue of BT and probably carries around the same amount of debt and is arguably suffering more than BT with competition from the Altnets; My point is that the the cable companies have taken over 30 years to get where they are now and still sit in BT's shadow. OFCOM have been all over BT for years, because there's a reluctance to invest to build competing networks without pinning BT down first, because of BT's scale.

Sure BT's revenue will drop temporarily for a while, but what really counts is how much BT can grow Net Profit and free cash flow, by becoming a much leaner business. It isn't about what they sell, it's about how much BT can bring down their operating costs.

"Fleccy a simple message isn't always a good one. Yes they can cut costs, but that's something all telcos can do"

For BT the investment case is all about cost cutting, which I've been saying for years. From the full year 25 Earnings, BT are bringing in Revenue of £20.3 Billion and report Net Debt of £19.8 Billion, but £4.5 Billion of that are Lease Liabilities, so BT's actual Net Financial Debt is around £15.1 Billion. The Lease Liabilities are calculated against the 30 year sale and leaseback agreement with Telereal Trillium in 2001. BT are aiming to close all but 1000 of their Exchanges, so those lease liabilities will dwindle over the next 5 years. BT will be shutting down the PSTN and associated legacy network at the beginning of 2027, so BT's network will be fully converged and require far less manpower to install and maintain. The annual £5 Billion capex, due to their Fibre and 5G rollouts, has already passed peak and will also be dropping off going forward, so BT will theoretically have more Free Cash flow to either reduce debt, invest in other things, or pay out more dividends.

I'm invested in both Vodafone and BT and I've tried to understand their respective businesses, but I've found BT's investment case far more easy to understand than Vodafone's. I believe Vodafone is severely undervalued, but their businesses are far more spread out than BT's and therefore a lot harder to understand.

"So why do people think the BT share price has done so much better over the past 12 months? "

BT's path to cost cutting and growing the bottom line is easier to understand, there's a bit more uncertainty with Vodafone because it's a more complicated beast.

Mole, even if what you're suggesting comes to pass Vodafone earn most of their cash outside of the UK, with any drop in the value of sterling boosting the dividend payout due to exchange rate differences. For anyone who lives in the UK and spends their money in the UK, a drop in sterling wouldn't be catastrophic either, as long as hyperinflation doesn't kick in.

I would argue the US has a bigger risk of defaulting than the UK, the appropriately named Big Beautiful Bill will could add anything between $2.4 to $5 Trillion to the US national debt which is already approaching an eye watering $37 Trillion. The Bill's supporters are saying the extra debt will be more than offset by growth, but that's highly speculative. Lets look at this way, assuming the US on shores as much as it can and resuscitates it manufacturing base, anything the US produces will only be saleable in the US, but the rest of the World will simply import cheaper Chinese products and probably have more disposable cash to spend on other things. Don't get me wrong, I hate that the UK's manufacturing sector has been sold down the river, but we just can't compete with China and neither can the US. Trump appears to cajoling Nato allies to buy US weapons, like the UK's recent F-35 Stealth bomber order, but that'll be about it as far as it goes, so anything else built in the US will likely be too expensive for export; We should be building our own jets, not buying US ones, but the Government seem set on destroying yet another historically significant UK manufacturing sector; We've previously built innovative Aircraft, like the Harrier, probably wont be too long before we build nothing in the UK, even our so called independent nuclear deterrent doesn't appear to be truly independent.

It's all meaningless, since they wouldn't release information unless it was advantageous to them, it isn't like they're charitable types. Anyone who acts on broker ratings need their head examining. Any prediction, in relation to any stock, is based on a vested interest and they'll either be talking their own book, or working on a clients behalf. They're all sharks and anything they spout should be viewed as a predatory baiting and taken with a pinch of salt.

Deutsche bank has been negative toward BT for a long time. Robert Grindle, although not as negative as Polo Tang at UBS, has been a BT bear for many years.

"Forgive me for the typo fleccy. But fleecy sounds better. Think I'll use it in future, if that's ok with you"

Yeah, no problem.

Is it ok if I refer to you as Candida in the future? Think I'll use it since it sounds better and describes perfectly how irritating you are. I think a yeast infection is a pretty good metaphor to describe your posts. Apparently some individuals may experience fatigue, brain fog, and mood swings due to candida overgrowth, it might not be a coincidence that you picked candidbloke for your username.

"Are you fleecy in disguise?"

Paranoia is negative trait of yours Candid. As I've told you before, on a number of occasions, I have one username on here and don't post using any other name. You'll only see posts from me with the username Fleccy. You're a strange one Candid.

"Fibrus added that access to Openreach’s ducts is currently calculated on a per metre basis, a protocol that it said disproportionately affects network build to rural areas where properties are, on average, 200m away from their nearest neighbour compared to just 20m in urban areas"

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366627029/Altnet-calls-on-UK-comms-regulator-to-prevent-rural-broadband-stagnation

They're having a laugh aren't they?

Take an area like Cumbria, dotted with farms and small villages, with a small number of properties serviced by potentially hundreds of Km's of ducts and poles. Fibrus want OFCOM to force Openreach to charge on a per property connected basis, yet there may be any number of poles connecting each individual property. Imagine the cost to Openreach from maintaining all that rural infrastructure, with potentially thousands of poles and the miniscule rental they'd get from from the Altnet's who are only charged a relatively small per property connection charge, and no responsibility for maintaining the infrastructure. There's likely a good reason why Ofcom agreed to Openreach charging on a per Metre, it's so that PIA users pay their fair share of the maintenance cost.

Fibrus should stop banging their drum and wind their necks in, they just want a free ride at the expense of BT shareholders. Frank say's:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvbXwwob8Kw