Member Info for Gohanito

Https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/eu-regulators-mull-easing-merger-rules-telcos-big-tech-help-pay-network-costs-2024-02-14/

Pre market at $13.5 or approx. £10.66.

This goes both ways - how can you question their assumptions re gas usage well into the second part of this century? As you said it's anyone guess as you can have a best case scenario were gas is still widely used as a supplementary source of energy or a worst case scenario were nuclear fusion comes out in ten years time and the entire O&G sector becomes obsolete almost overnight.

Value of dividend is 4.35 dollar cents which equates to about 3.45 GBP p. So the drop is actually smaller than the dividends.

Agreed though share price has been declining / languishing.

People keep saying that but the share price drop started early October and not just last week! Surely they could have put out a reassuring RNS two weeks ago when the share price was "only" 50% down from its September peak

Honestly just the African payments company should be worth as much as Vodafone's current entire MCAP. This is quite undervalued at this point and hopefully leadership can be bold in its pursue to unlock that value.

Greatest value destruction in such a short space of time i have ever seen… wth??

Not sure why they would cut the dividends if cash generation has remained at similar levels as in the past? The yield will decrease naturally as NAV and share price pick up.

Wow the directors actually recommended a 44p takeover proposal? That is shocking considering the performance of the company…

Strong trading but the quantum of litigation is incredible.. This is a constant risk to the company and I can't see this going away so investors should be mindful of that.

@H2Nick thanks for coming back on this. Indeed on a reported basis there is a small decrease but on an adjusted basis EPS is up approx. 10% (look at the EPS breakdown towards at the second half of the report).

Agreed re Revenue, that is why i also mentioned operating earnings as well which were quite ahead compared to 2021 (again you have to remember this is a mature to declining industry).

We definitely agree on the debt increasing being a negative - hopefully they can bring that down towards the lower end of their guidance range.

H2Nick - how did you arrive at the earnings flat assertion? BATS revenue grew by almost 8% while exiting Russia and Belarus (UK is not the only jurisdiction they sell into so comparing their revenue to the highest inflation rate in the G7 is not a good bench mark + costs also have an inflation element to them + really high inflation started mid way of 2022) and operating income grew by almost 3%. Not too bad for a company managing a steady decline in its industry.

Their debt profile is good and most of it is on fixed interest - you are right though that debt increasing is never good in this type of environment but as long as it supports growth its okay (which in a declining industry is difficult). I would be more comfortable with a lower debt figure for sure (i.e. sub £35bn or even £30bn).

For sure some negatives in there but on balance the results are pretty good and honestly I am quite surprised with the extremely negative market reaction.

Don't disagree with your comments but you have to balance all that with the fact that the SP has dropped by 50%+ from its peak. Its good to look at the macro environment but at the same time you need to see if the stock represents good value at current price (its probably fairly valued given all the negatives but at the same time buying it now could prove lucrative as things evolve).

Maybe i am just too greedy :)

Bit premature to take profits here. Definitely this share has the potential to double from here on (or be acquired here and now for a significant premium).

Usually companies pay tax the year after the revenue has been generated. So this would probably be taxes related to activity in 2021.

They are out of Russia (costed them slightly less than £1bn) as per BATS RNS on the 27th of July 2022 (you could check the company's own website rather than a newspaper ^&^).

They are already out of Russia - news came out this past summer.

Good luck with your investments (i hope you pay closer attention to the news pertaining your positions in the future).

Not sure why they would cut the dividend? Positive OFC covers all investing and financing cash outflows (and presume debt can be refinanced albeit more expensively).

They do need to bring debt to more normal levels though. It's crazy high.

What's up with the SP? It shot up all of a sudden. Any news?

I agree with all previous comments. The real question is when are we actually going to see some progress. I wish the company would give more detailed statements and abandon the platitudes (which not only don't add value but in my eyes they led to this "investigation").