Member Info for snoopz

@ripley94

Yes, I only post on this share here, although I hold shares in a number of companies, including BT.

As for the Bloomberg comment, I'm not disputing that you saw it on a Bloomberg source. However, there doesn't appear to be any publicly indexed Bloomberg article making the claim that BT is likely to be acquired in 2026. In fact, the only place I've been able to find that wording is on this forum itself.

More importantly, I don't think investors should attach any weight to the suggestion that BT will be "acquired in 2026". There is no credible evidence from any major financial publication, broker research, or company announcement to support that conclusion. On the contrary, BT has been pursuing strategic partnerships and restructuring its international business rather than positioning itself for a takeover.

Even if a bidder were to emerge, any attempt to acquire BT in its entirety would face significant political and regulatory hurdles, given the company's importance to the UK's communications infrastructure.

The only person I've heard mention this idea over the last decade or so is our resident troll, who is just trying to wind people up!

Anyway, you seem to be a sophisticated investor, so any meaningful insights you have, as opposed to copy-and-paste posts, would always be appreciated. In the meantime, good luck with all your trades!

@ripley94

Seems like you cut and paste more than 10 of these weird complicated statistical bits of information every day anout different companies. I'm pretty sure nobody on here has any idea what they are about! AND if you seriously think BT will get "acquired in 2026", then it's pretty clear you have no idea what they are about either!!!

@alnico,

Don't be silly, our troll just makes up figures to suit his narrative. Only real number he knows is the amount he's lost on the overpriced BT shares he bought when they were att there peak...and he thought the only direction they could go was further up. He's been crying about his stupidity ever since!!!

Nice to get rid of one of our troll's many aliases. BUT she'll soon create a new one so she can send messages between them to try to create the illusion that she's important. Such fantasies are common among people who crave attention. There are plenty of medical conditions cover this kind of behaviour... but "Sad Loser" would be my definition!

@Snakeman

Nice summary!

@Farticus

F being the capital of France was actually quite clever!

Well, we know what happens next... we get a Burnham-led government in a month or two. But what happens after that?

I don't think Burnham is totally stupid, so we can rule out an early election that Labour would be almost certain to lose. Even if they somehow won, it would only give them a fresh five-year mandate instead of the three years they would otherwise have left. It makes far more sense for them to hang on and hope their poll ratings improve.

There may well be a slight improvement for a while, but ultimately they are doomed to fail. As committed socialists, they are unwilling to do what is necessary: drastically reduce welfare spending, cut taxes, abandon Net Zero policies, resume oil and gas exploration, start fracking, encourage business investment, stop throwing money at the EU in an attempt to reverse Brexit, keep the Chagos Islands under UK sovereignty, rebuild relations with the United States, and most importantly introduce tougher laws to discourage immigration and ensure the immediate deportation of illegal immigrants, etc., etc. The list goes on and on!

Everything they have done so far has been a disaster, and rather than changing course, they will double down on the same policies. The result will destroy the economy, but that does not concern them because they do not believe in economics. Most Labour members and MPs are borderline communists who hate capitalism, believing that higher taxes on the wealthy can solve almost every problem. They believe that all they need to do is shake the magic money tree and all those greedy rich millionaires will pay for all their left-wing delusions.

@Abject performer

"Diversify; datadog. Crowdstrike , Nvidia , Asml , arista networks , micron , amd."

Diversifying is esential in creating a balanced portfolio, but it seems you have no idea what it means. All your suggestions are tech stocks and apart from asml they are all based in the usa!

As we are all well aware, BT shares have fallen substantially recently. The reason is not at all clear, as nothing dramatic has happened. The results were broadly as expected, including a slight drop in revenue and continued broadband losses. The threat from altnets has been well known for years and is actually receding now that it is becoming clear there is little money available to finance further large-scale network builds. There is nothing new regarding the pension deficit, and everyone has long understood that any takeover attempt would be blocked. Starlink probably represents more of a business opportunity than a threat.

Yet the share price continues to fall. Why?

My personal opinion is that it may be linked to the Makerfield by-election. Looking at the betting exchanges (which I do), it has been clear for over a month that Andy Burnham was going to win. Apart from Liz Truss, we have had a succession of soft left-wing Prime Ministers ever since Tony Blair stepped down. Of course, most of them were Conservatives and would strongly deny that description, but it goes a long way towards explaining how we ended up with the current crop of clowns. Burnham, however, is on a different level altogether. The King of the North and his unionist chums are traditional socialists who will inflict serious damage on the economy in the three years (max) they have left.

So how might this affect BT?

Jeremy Corbyn's 2019 Labour manifesto proposed nationalising Openreach and providing broadband free at the point of use to households and businesses. Such an idea will be highly attractive to Burnham's government. Our resident troll and Aus will probably be enthusiastic supporters, as it fits neatly into their takeover narrative. They will no doubt be dreaming of a generous premium on the current share price. The reality would be rather different. Nationalisation is not a conventional takeover. There would be no magic bid. Corbyn's proposal was to compensate BT shareholders with government bonds in exchange for the nationalised assets. In other words, we would find ourselves holding a pile of useless government paper that we would have to sell at a substantial discount.

Could this really happen?

In my opinion.....NO. There simply is not enough time. Labour will be heavily punished at the next General Election for the mess it has created over the past two years and then the threat passes. Nevertheless, markets tend to err on the side of caution, and however remote the possibility may be, it remains a risk that investors cannot ignore. Hopefully, time will correct this thinking as it becomes apparent that the company is safe (for now)!

@farticus

Do you really keep pencils in your crayon box?

So our troll has opened a new account as "Farticus" – suits him, I suppose! He usually does this when he gets suspended, but Bidboy seems to still be posting, so it's just an extra handle so he can make multiple posts, the 2nd agreeing with the 1st. Classic Schizophrenia... posters should remember that there is little point in engaging in debate, as he's mentally sick!

@snakeman

Good analysis!

You might well be right about that fleccy. But this is just the process...in the end I think the takeover will be approved. Otherwise the whole "consolidation" concept collapses!

@Carrington

"Ofcom will have to tell the general public that they could have had cheaper, more cost-effective broadband via BT, but instead they chose to restrict price reductions in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis."

Don't be silly — hell will freeze over before any quango admits responsibility for anything!

My guess is that this takeover will be waved through and Ofcom will simply cross its fingers that "altnet consolidation" will save its bacon. In my opinion, that's pretty unlikely.

PRK1

On the contrary, I understand perfectly well. You bought shares in Cornish Metals on the hope and a prayer that they will be successful and their price will increase tenfold. OK, why be such a pessimist? Let's say 100-fold.

It could happen that they do make a profit and that you make some money. However, 90%+ of these ventures end in total failure. There are a load of unknowns which could scupper your company even if they do start mining in a few years' time. How much economically recoverable tin remains? What grade is it? What will it cost to extract? What will tin prices be when production begins?

But the prospect of imminent bankruptcy is only one cloud circling over your investment. The real problem is that private investors will not see much of the profits. A company like Vision Blue can use numerous financial instruments to siphon off money before it gets anywhere near you.

All stock investments are a gamble, and just like betting on the horses, it's essential to weigh the odds before handing over the dosh. In this case, they are significantly stacked against you!!!

PRK1

A bad day for the BT share price so up you pop again! Did you invest all the £1.35 you got from bailing out of BT a few years back on Cornish Metals. That was a stroke of genius - investing in a company whose only asset is a floded tin mine!

"Bharti Bros, are like the cavalry, ready to come in and bid at the last minute." - sooo a bit like General Custer?

Silly and incoherent!

Aus3009

Usual long rambling nonsense with made-up “facts”, idiotic claims and negative conclusions.

Made-up “fact”: “In fact BT are telling us most are moving to competitors for better speeds etc, it’s fair to think these will be altnets, maybe 5G maybe satellite broadband.”

BT said no such thing so you just invented this to support your own opinion. The consumer broadband market remains highly competitive, but BT’s comments were mainly about pricing pressure, competition and legacy customer movements — not some mass exodus because competitors offer vastly superior speeds. In many areas Openreach FTTP is now among the fastest and most widely available networks in the UK anyway, so your invented “fact” doesn’t stack up.

Idiotic claim: “Even if they move to a BT supported business the income between a BT retail and a BT wholesale arrangement is less much less.”

That is completely backwards. BT’s Consumer broadband ARPU is about £42, while an Openreach wholesale line to a huge ISP customer like TalkTalk may only bring in roughly £10 per month.

So a direct BT/EE retail customer is worth massively MORE than a wholesale-only arrangement — not “much less”.

Negative conclusion: “The other glaring part of this is record fibre connections but a drop in revenue. Posters saying this cannot continue are absolutely right.”

That ignores the fact that BT is already implementing the solution strategy. BT has spent years rolling out FTTP at enormous scale, expanding 5G infrastructure, driving fibre penetration higher and preparing for major cost reductions as the build phase matures. They have also announced significant workforce reductions as part of the efficiency programme. So posters claiming the current pressures “cannot continue” are not revealing some hidden problem the market has missed. BT management is already addressing those pressures through infrastructure modernisation, automation and cost transformation.

That is precisely why the market has become more optimistic about BT over the last couple of years and why the share price has materially recovered from its lows.

You are treating the current pressures as if BT has no response strategy, when in reality the response strategy is already well underway.

@bidboy

BT losing 800,000 broadband customers in a year is completely in line with company projections. There’ll likely be another 800,000 next year too, so stop harping on about it every time BT releases their results. It's almost as tiresome and idiotic as your incessant posts regarding the invisible magic bid!

A business can absolutely cut costs faster than it loses revenue - companies have been doing that for years. If the market thought the strategy was unsustainable, the share price wouldn’t have been rising over the past few years.