Gordon Stein, CFO of CleanTech Lithium, explains why CTL acquired the 23 Laguna Verde licenses. Watch the video here.
Finally they've merged Enterprise and Global into one Unit. And some sensible appointments, too. A page finally being turned in that area, I was worried they'd bring another Luiz Alvarez type, so good they're keeping Bas on as CEO. I see they've also cleared a lot of BT Lifers like Mark O'Flaherty, hopefully this continues down the line, lot of deadwood directors and senior managers riding out org changes till they receive their pensions, need to be cleared out and proper management bought in.
As I mentioned just a few months ago.
And I still stick to my prediction, Sharon White will replace him. Former Openreach head, and solid experience in retail from her time at John Lewis. Future growth lies in growing the Consumer business.
I also see Openreach engineering workforce being outsourced to Amey or another infrastructure company, with BT keeping all the assets, IP, tech etc. They've already solf off BT Fleet, and logical that engineers follow.
Career accountant and finance guy, bought into role because board were expecting imminent takeover. Looks like the government will scupper any such plans certainly for any foreign takeover. So maybe time for a replacement? I'm thinking Sharon White, currently at John Lewis. First hand experience of regulatory matters as former chief at ofcom. Good retail experience built up at John Lewis. Right woman for the job I think.
I think Drahis purchase was a partly a hedge against a sudden global markets crash, he's parking cash in an industry he knows well and a company that's unlikely to go bust or lose significant value in case of a recession. I don't think he was any plans beyond that for now.
It's been straight down since the Italy scandal. Prior to 2015 the city had taken it's eye off the ball when it came to really taking a good look at how BT ran the business. After the scandal, a lot of nasty stuff came out, and it wasn't just a few bad apples or a rogue Italian subsidiary, BT management were found to be completely incompetent. Out of date systems and processes, command and control management, management made up of well connected lifers promoting mates, layers and layers of management, duplicate roles, general bad business practices throughout.
It's all in the McKinsey report Gavin commissioned.. a bunch of cuts and reorgs were announced soon after, but they barely addressed what was recommended in that report.
City is now terrified of how BT is being run, hence the continuous sell off. The only way out is radical change, takeover or splitting the business up.
By that logic, all utility companies would be doing well, so how is the National Grid share price doing over a five year period? And all the big energy companies? 'liquid gold'.. you are deluded.
BTs responsibility for critical infrastructure, if anything, is a hindrance. Too much regulation, and government focus (not arguing that's a good or bad thing) but it definitely distracts from the whole point of running a company which is to make lots of money.
So much delusion here, the current N3 programme barely makes any money for BT, and it'll be the same for any new contract they win. There were like a hundred people working on N3, mostly low productivity unionised BT lifers waiting out for early retirement, and a generally really badly managed project. It'll be the same for any new contract, BT can't even manage digital transformation projects internally..
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/oct/18/bt-took-an-age-to-install-our-community-centres-superfast-broadband
Even more horror stories in the comments. My experience has been BT are so scared of breaching ofcom openreach impartiality rules, they'd rather screw over the customer and do something as stupid as this. The most risk averse management around.
As much as I hate BT management, I don't see it sub 100p. It should be quite easy to get it if Jansen/Crozier are serious. Needs a massive headcount reduction, and other savings especially across technology. Most of which can be offshored (their digital unit head was already poached from an Indian company and I'm guessing she's already started planning). If they could get rid of global services as well, or at least cut it down and focus on their strength of global networking
Easy to announce partnerships and make big claims, BT have been doing this for the last few decades but fail miserably at monetisation . https://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/creative-lifestyle/bt-futurologist-ai-entity-will-win-nobel-by-2020/
Pandemic and working from home could've really been used better to sell the benefits of 5G, imagine BT taking the lead on transforming working from home, supplying some of its staff with 5G headsets and demoing them having crystal clear lag free video conferencing. One of the links you've posted talks about volumetric rendering, I can see that technology being used to create more natural 3D backgrounds for video calls as well, what a great opportunity it would've been to demo
BTs approach to security had been to throw manpower at the problem, result of highly risk averse middle management. They have layers and layers of security teams, all well paid BT lifers.
Most other companies are taking a smarter approach to security, Google for example has pioneered context aware and zero trust security models, and they probably have 1/100th the security staff BT has
BT global services is just a software and services reseller. Yes it may seem cool to see them associated with the hottest tech around AI, security etc, but all they're doing is taking that software or service, putting a BT service wrap around it, and flogging it with a tiny profit margins or just about breaking even.
Or you can have first hand experience at their 'cutting edge labs' and know the true story on the ground. That tech cluster is a myth, good for marketing, but reality is there are barely any people actively working in those cluster companies. Have you seen where Adastral Park is? Outer edge of Ipswich, which intself is hours drive from any major hub. BT know it was well, half the buildings there are abandoned which is why the planning on selling most of the site to Ipswich city council to repurpose as housing.
Sky continuing it's tradition of innovation. If this doesn't pay off, their next idea will. Unlike BT.. I remember a friend who worked for them claim excitedly they have plans for a 4g backup solution to their routers. This was 7 years ago.. only now they're willing it out, and it's a physically separate device, which isn't even that useful anymore with unlimited data plans and 5g on a lot of phones.
Made the bear case for BT very clear in my analysis a few weeks ago. Followed BT very closely for the last few years, and I see it at 120p around Christmas. That is unless DAZN makes a bid for BT sport, or drahi or another big player takes a further chunk. Even then there'll be a temporary rise only.
Weighing up whether or not I should invest, now its dropped quite a bit. On conclusion, probably not based on;
1) Risks that come with an old company trying to modernise.
Seen it with BA and countless others. These older companies have massive technical debts, legacy systems, processes and way overstaffed with a lot of expensive resources. IT modernisation programmes rarely go smoothly, and anticipate some major outages and/or data breaches in the next few years that'll set the SP back
2) Competition. Anyone used the TalkTalk site recently? Very slick, smooth sign-up, really attractive packages, undercut BT on speed and price. Full fibre roll-outs from Virgin and CityFibre will eat into profits
3) Poor product choice. What is BT offering with its internet packages for example? BT Sport? Are the rights worth it? The Halo 4G backup router is a gimmick. Maybe would've been a good idea 5-10 years ago, but a lot of people already have 4/5G unlimited data plans on their mobiles, which they can use during any outages. Full internet outages also quite rare these days as well, see latest figures, faults dropping and line quality improving all the time.
4) Slow fibre roll out. Based on past performance, BT will be the slowest rolling it out and by I'm not sure they'll recoup their investment because of..
5) Disruptive tech. Easy to dismiss StarLink, 6G and other next gen connecitivty tech, but these things will come. And they pose existential risk to BT's core business. Maybe not immediately, but also not so far out either.
6) Leadership. Can't see Philip sticking around, same with the other senior leaders. I can see BT going through a phase of revolving doors with CEO's in the next few years.
On the investment case it does seem undervalued with EE, and Openreach part of the business. But I see Openreach being split off in the next few years. And with EE at the top of its game, there's only one way to go now and that's down. Processes and BT way of doing things will creep in and turn EE into a slow, risk averse, inefficient BT like entity in a few years.