Member Info for gewillia

The problem asset is now sold, but that doesn't alter the equation for the horrible problem that underlies all the company's efforts. VOD is billions in debt from all the costs of equipment for 1G, then 2G, then 3, 4 and finally (so far) 5G, plus, each time, hundreds of millions in fees must be paid to various governments for permission to use certain, usually different, bandwidths. Very little of this has ever been repaid, because interest rates were an historic joke. Now, of course, the piper will have to be paid 5%+ as the bonds mature.

So the first major problem is the debt pile that feasts on the shareholders revenue from operating mobile 'phone lines and the fact that the interest burden is likely to increase substantially over time.

Then there is the problem of competition. Lots of different operators, all offering the same product and being differentiated by the customers purely on price. The monthly rent. Which means zero opportunity to increase profit margins to a decently remunerative level.

And always behind the curtain, the fear that a competitor will try and steal a march with 6G, and force you to borrow billions to install all the upgraded infrastructure to compete with their 6G, or 7, or even 8.

This is a utility that will never make decent profits. Just look at its' P&L record for the last 20 years. Steadily downwards, like its' steadily falling share price. Yet the comments pages are always full of optimists that the price is just about to jump 10, or 20 pence. Again look at the SP record and observe how rarely this has ever happened.

And all the while the MSCI World Index has shown a passive 10%+ annual compound growth, net of very low fees, for you doing nothing except watching your capital double every seven years or so. Had you put your hard-earned cash in that fund in the early noughties you'd have turned every quid into £8 today, instead of turning every quid into ten pence.

£8 compared to 10p seems a no brainer to me, yet the optimists here blindly throw their money away on a dead duck. Why? Is there a rational explanation for an optimism that ignores past history and little evidence of ever seeing a worthwhile recovery? Just asking.

From 13 quid down 99% to pennies in nine years, with no sign of a recovery. Small wonder Private Eye years ago christened it, Crapita. Time to call the undertakers.

Long-term very dissatisfied Standard Life holder here. Bird has had three years and the merger with Aberdeen has proved a financial disaster. In a world filled with Nvidia's Meta's and Microsoft's, abrdn with its' dumb name has proved a veritable dog of the first order, while good profits are being made elsewhere.

Is it time to euthanise the beast, flog off the parts and hand the cash back to shareholders, via an orderly liquidation?

According to the US gambling papers, that I read, all the serious, heavy money from the pro's was for San Fran to cover the spread and win LVIII by 3 points or more. These punters got their backsides handed to them on a plate, sliced and diced, by one Patrick Mahomes of KC, in the last minute of overtime.

I wonder f this explains why Flutter's price is so strong. I'm looking forward to reading the annual report next month.

I got in here a fortnight ago on the recommendation of a very knowledgable broker. I'm wondering if there's any other holders, and, if so what are you views and knowledge? I rarely take a blind punts, so this is a first for a long time. Look forward to hearing from you.

Chid, I see that it fell to a premium of 15% above NAV, from premium of 23%, which is very rich. So my guess is that the market thought the NAV would come in at c. 2150/2200p and it just didn't get those numbers.

Much as I enjoy 'climbing the wall of worry', now that it's getting close to tripling my May 2020 purchase price, I'm beginning to think it's time to sell 1/3rd to 1/2 to put it on a zero-cost basis. Which raises the question, where to go next? All in on the US Techs? With their 35+ PE ratios? Any thoughts?

Perceptive comment, Owls. I've often wondered why it is that steadily profitable plc's, with SP's that show a compound annual growth rate in excess of 8%, generate little comment, whereas hair-raising, big-dipper rides, usually in the "under a pound" range, receive dozens a day, from the faithful.

Almost invariably a glance at their 5-year chart shows a steady decline from top-left to bottom-right corner, and yet there seems to be a small army of believers that the SP is going to change direction. Vodaphone being the biggest example right now.

I got in here in May 2020 with the proceeds of a reshuffle, having watched the price arbitrarily marked down from £13 to £8 solely due to covid. Paper profits are now just shy of 200%. Talk about easy money and I'm very happy to ride on the back of the Action tiger, until the day growth weakens, which might be next week, or 2034, I've no idea. Just very content to have a good winner in the ISA.

I've never been a holder, long or short, but I'm always on the look out for possible profits. Taking the annual look this morning at the SP, twice in the last five years management have crashed it down from five quid to pennies.

What evidence is there that management can get it back to a fiver for a third time? And if they did, keep it there for any length of time? I enjoy rides on roller-coasters, but not the financial variety.

Dabbling here has got to be one of the mysteries of human psychology. For me anyway.

Long term holder here. First purchase August of '17 at 55 quid. I expected a much smoother ride to massive profitability, but events provided opportunities to buy more, at mid-fifties in March '20 and low 80's in the Spring of '22. Always struck me that London bookies would clean up in the USA, so spread the cash across here, William Hill and Entain, reckoning that at least one had to hit the jackpot.

Hill got sold down the river very quickly to Caesars for a still-profitable pittance, that should have been much larger. Entain more than doubled at 25 quid, and I should have sold a lot more then as management under Kenny Alexander and the Swedish lady made a lot of mis-steps, both before & after, leaving the price languishing.

Meantime Flutter sails on at almost 200% over initial purchase price and way over 100% overall, having done what the market seemingly doubted, by making a huge profit in the US in 2023. My analysis now suggests (based on the forecast growth in the US market) we'll see a £300 sp before 2030, as the minnows in the US disappear and leave Fan Duel, Draft Kings and MGM to fight over market share, but to keep the costs of that exercise low. Almost as if they're doing it for appearances sake.

As for Entain? MGM is the only buyer for their 50% of the JV. So the only question is, will Entain stay in and reap the profits? It's unlikely imo, that MGM will pay either a good premium, or buy the whole company, to take us out, so I'm relying on good new management being brought in at CEO level to drive the sp back to the £15 to £20 level over the next 3 to 5 years.

We shall see.

Why have they underperformed? For me, and this is just a personal opinion, there's a reason expectations are low. It's because the average UK punter in OEICS has begun to wake up to the fact that many of these funds are third and fourth-quartile dogs, in so far as they underperform all the indexes and most of the benchmarks. IOW, you'd be better off paying much lower fees to a tracker, than much higher fees to a Fund House, who can't cover the cost of those fees and so underperform trackers.

For what its' worth, I just ditched an underperforming wealth manager, whose record is 2% annual growth after fees over the last 5, 10 & 15 years. Should have done it long ago. There are at least 3 houses in the City showing long term 6 to 8% pa compound annual growth, but I've no idea of their minimum portfolio sizes. Take a boo at Waverton, Julius Baer & Cazenove Capital. Three others, slightly behind them and more volatile performers are Sarasin, Abrdn and James Hambro.

Their fees are 0.8 to 1.0% with almost no dealing changes. Compare this to the outrageous dealing charges levied by St James Place and Brewin Dolphin on their clients. Usually over 1.25%.

All of these 2%'s below the benchmark, plus another 1+% dealing fees, make an enormous difference to long term performance of your savings over 20 years and, imo, investors in much greater numbers are finally realising this. There are far too many offerors of OEICS investments and wealth management services who aren't worth the fees we pay them.

So does this mean that SONG can back out of the $471 million sale to Hipgnosis Capital? And, if so, for what penalty?

Historically, you can't argue with actual cash trades in the market as being the most representative of an asset's current market value. Unless the valuer can provide a watertight reason for why a recent, uncompleted, sale is grossly misleading. So far, SONG isn't giving us that reason.

Also, is there anyone else here who is mighty confused by references to a whole bunch of companies containing the name 'Hipgnosis', but which are all under different ownerships and not beneficially owned by SONG? I find it very misleading.

Ok Ritchie, here's a few reasons why VOD's SP is sitting at a 20-year-low:

The markets it operates in are very mature. There is no real growth. Just a dog-eat-dog battle over market shares.

Mobile telephony has become like Gas, Leccy and Water; a utility. No customer cares who their supplier is, so long as supply is good and the price is cheap.

The European markets are over-supplied. Too many companies chasing not enough customers. Hence the market is rationalising through amalgamations.

Try looking at 'phones in the same way as the history of car manufacturers; Back in the 1920's there were literally hundreds in the US. Today there are just three. What took a century with cars, is taking less than thirty years with mobiles. Based on its' management's lack of success since 2003, it's highly unlikely that VOD will exist (except perhaps as someone else's brand name) in ten years.

GABI faces a vote at next year's AGM, when the shareholders decide whether to continue in business, or wind up this enterprise and distribute the cash to the shareholders, pro rata.

Given the horrendous discount to NAV, the smart money could well be loading up on this stock, with the intention to vote "Liquidate" in 2024. They might make a profit, although Mr. Market thinks not.

My deepest sympathies, CJ. I'm afraid all bookies have always been ruthless in closing winning accounts. I learnt that lesson in 1965, aged just 18, as a student. I had a friend with equine connections and he taught two of us how to handicap 2-year-olds. Al's system worked. We learnt how to operate it and in short order we were shut down by Hill's, then Ladbrokes, and two big Liverpool bookies. The secret was to back one horse per day and back it hard, say, £5 or £10, maybe £20 EW, which was a fair amount of money in those days. And then leave all the other races, especially handicaps, alone.

With no credit facilities, the only way round the problem was to bet in cash. Each shop had their own limit, where they had to call their local head office if the bet exceeded about £5, to get permission to take or refuse the it. So the secret was to chat the staff to discover that limit and then later bet just under it. My diary recorded each shop's limit.

It kept me very trim as I spent my lunch-hours traipsing round the back cracks of Liverpool city centre dropping off four quid here and six pounds there. Our trio had a very profitable four years. My memory of our best flat season was my profit of £1,250 which enabled us to live like kings, going to the Henley rowing, skiing in Aviemore and Ascot for the Eclipse weekend. Then we all graduated, got proper jobs as an accountant, lawyer & surveyor, earned good pay and gave up trying to outwit bookmakers.

But it left me with a great love of both flat & NH racing that endures to this day. Where it's easy to place a £10,000 bet on a stock, but the returns are a much more conservative 8% compound.

It has to be so much easier today for bookies to track profitable accounts via their computers, but against that there is a great plethora of online firms. So I'm wondering if you went to the trouble of opening, say, a dozen different accounts and never betting more than once a fortnight with each, you might get away with running a profitable enterprise., by keeping under the radar. Also presumably the Betfair Exchange wouldn't fire you, would they? Anyway, I wish you Good Luck, whatever you do.

Very interesting comments from you, CJ, and Cukkas too. I've just got back from two weeks (three Sundays plus two Monday and Thursday nights) in the wild west of Alberta, where my son-in-law is a keen NFL fan, glued to US TV & streaming channels for his NFL fix.

I enjoyed the games, but was even more fascinated by the gambling ads. These told me that there are just four bookies left seriously in the US game; Fan Duel (Fltr), Draft Kings, MGM (Entain) and Caesars (Willie Hill). No-one else was advertising nationally, although they might be on the, much cheaper, local channels. My conclusion is that the battle for national market share is effectively over, with all the others having wasted their money and retired hurt. From now on the Big 4 will be aiming to maintain their positions.

Like you, Cukkas, I'm mystified by Fltr's & Ent's share prices. These days their advertising spend is way down, meaning that profits have to be way up, although we won't have the details until next March, yet the SP is closer to the floor than an ATH. The market seemed to take the postponement of the Fan Duel float badly. It's as if it suspects that the profits just aren't there.

I've always believed that the NFL is an Eldorado of gambling profits and started buying the big three Brits years ago. My expectation of steadily rising SP's over that time for Entain and Flutter has proved dead wrong, so I've continued to buy more, whenever cash is available. The result is a heavily skewed ISA portfolio. When the lads finally tear off their G-strings in five months time, all will be revealed. Either substantial and ever-growing profits will pump the SP's, or it's time to look elsewhere in the ISA. I still think I'm right, but then that's probably what the lemmings think too, as they sprint across the grass. We shall see.

Well Mr. Harrison, one year on from your opinion and your impatience has cost you a gain of over 50%.

From 88p to 138p. Just shows how difficult it is to forecast the stock market. Better luck next time.

With great respect, I disagree with Taverham and Cukkas. Penn is a casino and racetrack enterprise with over 44 assets. It has made a very half-hearted attempt to get into bookmaking. Last I looked, it's market share was 3%.

Disney is today partly a real-estate operation, looking for sites to build and expand hotels, with, and without, attached casinos. Penn's asset-heavy base is right up their street.

FLTR has fallen today because expectations of the float of Fan Duel on the NYSE have been postponed until the year-end, or more likely, just after, instead of during the fourth-quarter, imo. So postponing what should give an enormous boost to the SP.

But with 47% of the US bookmaking market, FLTR is on track to be a world-wide colossus and very profitable. I see this slight dip in the SP as a buying opportunity.

Thank you for these interesting numbers, that you've analysed, Asartara. I believe that one reason for the enormous difference in valuations is that FLTR has become the biggest bookie in the States, with 30% of the market and is planning to float its' US subsidiary on Wall Street later this year, right in the middle of the NFL season, and probably at a high PE ratio.

888 is more of a bread-&-butter bookie with a tiny US presence and a shed-load of debt. Right now brokers and banks are dead scared of heavily indebted plc's because they're frightened they'll get swamped by their rising interest payments. Imo, this an unnecessary panic. I was investing in the 70's when interest rates were 2 and 3 times today's. (My mortgage was definitely in double digits for a while). I survived and heavily indebted companies mostly kept floating and profitable. I hold 888 because management is smart. Kenny A is sharper than the proverbial, the company is very profitable and an SP of around a quid is a joke. It's worth far more and I should have bought at 50 pence a few months ago, instead of ninety something.

I just fail to understand the "optimists" posting here today. VOD has come all the way down from £2.58 in May 2015 - Eight blooming years ago - in a steady fall. No intervening recoveries of 20% or 30% and yet there are posters claiming it'll be 100p by tomorrow and Nirvana will shortly arrive to shower you all with profits.

One flippin' merger in a telecoms market saturated with suppliers, where price is the only motivator to buy the product, or stay with it, is going to do this? I don't think so. Umpteen generations of senior management have utterly failed to manifest anything remotely like a recovery., since the Mannesmann merger twenty years ago. What on earth leads you to believe that this merger will change eight years of loss making SP failure?

The thought arises; I wonder if following a share, or shares, with an upward trend might do your wallets more good, than this mongrel. A remote possibility, I agree, but it just might.

Boys, this is Africa. The local lads will be queueing up, hands outstretched, to discuss "the fees" required to (i) satisfy the minister, plus (ii) to forego TPDC's rights of pre-emption to take over the Mnazi Bay asset and plus (iii) for final approval by the FCC.

Only after all those shovels have been inserted into the £61 million on offer from the purchasers, will WEN shareholders get their hands on whatever is left over. And as for a completion of a takeover by 31st December, it's most unlikely to be 2023. Pick a different year, the local lads are in no hurry to cut a deal. Just look at the troubles Tullow have had in monetising their assets in both Uganda and Kenya, geographical next door neighbours to Tanzania. Not a single barrel sold since major oil discoveries some ten years ago.

I shudder to think where the SP is going tomorrow morning.