reports
- James Ratzer
European Telecoms for 2026 Industry action required for further outpe...
Over the past 3 years, the EU telecoms sector has had a great run – up >50%, despite modest underlying revenue/ EBITDA growth. This has almost entirely come from a deserved upwards re-rating in the multiple as the risk profile across the sector diminishes – which has been a key theme of ours in the past few years given improved regulation. So, we feel this has now largely played out.
- James Ratzer
Vodafone (Buy, 120p, +26%) Safaricom buyout: More FCF accretive than ...
Vodafone and Vodacom have announced today that they will be taking control of Safaricom. Given the structure of the deal with Kenyan Government involving pre-paying dividends, we think the deal could offer better than expected accretion to Vodafone’s reported FCF for limited capital outflow.
- James Ratzer
Vodafone (Buy, 120p, +30%) H1 26 - Multiple re-rating in play
Vodafone has reported a decent set of H1 results and guidance has been moved to the upper-end of the guidance range (albeit us and consensus were already there). We think there is still a story for the multiple to be re-rated further – and even though there is new dividend guidance today, we also think there is potential for incremental cash return to come at the FY results.
- James Ratzer
BT (Neutral, 220p, +19%) H1 26: Let’s focus on Starlink & Openreach
Financial and KPI results were broadly in line with expectations and all financial guidance has been reiterated. Therefore, in this note we focus more on two specific angles – 1) How to digest the Openreach line losses and why FY26 might not be “peak line losses” and 2) What to make of the new Starlink deal announced, which we think could have interesting longer-term implications.
- James Ratzer
TalkTalk (Neutral) H1 review – New outlook, new model
TalkTalk’s H1 results show that customer momentum remains a challenge for them given the price competitive nature of the UK market which allow customers to switch with more ease than in the past. Working capital outflow has also been higher than expected.
- James Ratzer
Cityfibre up, Openreach down Better visibility on Sky deal drives CF...
XLast month, Cityfibre reported a sharp acceleration in its net add run rate due to its new deal with Sky – and a clear indication that Sky now intends to put all of its new FTTP customers in Cityfibre’s footprint on the Cityfibre network.
- James Ratzer
UK consolidation Should VMO2 consider shutting down its HFC network?
Two of the most common questions we get asked at the moment are: 1) How will the UK broadband market consolidate?, and 2) What can VMO2 do to turn around their performance? We believe an interesting answer to both of these questions could be for VMO2 to consider shutting down their HFC network and moving to wholebuy Openreach’s FTTH network. This could be both value accretive for VMO2 and BT – and allow for a more rational UK market structure. In this thought-piece, we explore further how this...
- James Ratzer
CityFibre Q3: Significant customer acceleration with Sky launch & BT ...
CityFibre has just released a Q3 trading update which highlights the acceleration in customer volumes that they are seeing with Sky – and this is likely to put incremental pressure on BT, especially if momentum accelerates further in Q4 which we think could be likely.
- Ben Rickett
- James Ratzer
UK Fixed Market Review: Fewer lines to go round BT back to Neutral. D...
We now think the UK physical broadband line market is shrinking for the first time due to the impact of high penetration, FWA, satellite, mobile tethering and low economic growth. It is difficult to see this structural trend changing in the foreseeable future and we therefore adjust our view of UK fixed market growth – cutting our 2030 forecast for UK wireline broadband lines by 10%.
- James Ratzer
TalkTalk (1st lien: From Overweight to Neutral) Update on new initiat...
In early June, we upgraded the TalkTalk 1st lien debt to Buy – and it has since rallied from 45 to 75. We have also now seen a good degree of the Consumer changes that TalkTalk highlighted were coming earlier this year and based on what we have seen, we see no reason to change our existing forecasts. In this note, we therefore run through the new initiatives, the valuation and hence, the driver of our decision to move the 1st lien bonds back to Neutral.
- James Ratzer
- James Ratzer
- Russell Waller
Why you should be reading the Tariff Tracker – a leading SR indicator
We publish monthly front book pricing data in our Tariff Tracker product. In this report we show some new analysis looking at how front book tariffs are a good leading indicator for service revenue trends in mobile and fixed, including new work looking at discounted and undiscounted prices.
Liberty Global Ltd: 2 directors
A director at Liberty Global Ltd sold 45,000 shares at 11.459USD and the significance rating of the trade was 64/100. Is that information sufficient for you to make an investment decision? This report gives details of those trades and adds context and analysis to them such that you can judge whether these trading decisions are ones worth following. Included in the report is a detailed share price chart which plots discretionary trades by all the company's directors over the last two years clea...
- James Ratzer
TalkTalk (1st Lien - Overweight) New capital injection a mixed blessi...
TalkTalk has announced a new funding arrangement of up to £100m of extra liquidity. They have also provided new guidance and we run though our take on the new funding and the new guidance. We then provide an update to our forecasts and what this might mean for M&A possibilities
- James Ratzer
Vodafone (Buy, £1.20, +40%) Q1 26: Clearer evidence of value over volu...
Vodafone’s Q1 results do show some signs of improving revenue growth in Germany with a more disciplined approach to pricing. We think Vodafone still looks very attractively priced at the moment, but we believe a longer-term outlook from management would help to underpin more confidence in the investment case.
- James Ratzer
- Ben Rickett
- James Ratzer
- Russell Waller
EU Telecoms: Half-time 2025 Review Sector has outperformed: More sele...
The European Telecoms continues to outperform: up 17% YTD vs. the market up 10%. While this is great to see, adding to the 12pp outperformance in 2024 and supporting our investment thesis of improving regulation, it does mean the equity upside story from here is becoming more selective.
- James Ratzer
TalkTalk (Overweight 1st lien) Deeper dive on customer trends and est...
There is a lot of focus (quite rightly) on TalkTalk’s customer trends as a longer-term indicator of their growth trajectory but the initial Q1 results suggested a wide range of outcomes.However, we now have more detail on this from the company and in this note, we take a deeper dive into the precise customer trends and provide an updated set of forecasts. For BT, we then also assess the potential impact that this might be having on Openreach.
- James Ratzer
- James Ratzer
Vodafone to Virgin spectrum sale: More details revealed
As part of the Vodafone-Three merger (VOD3UK), the merging companies committed to sell a portfolio of spectrum to VMO2. The details of that spectrum portfolio have now been formally disclosed by Ofcom, which has published a notification listing the frequencies that are due to be transferred (LINK). In this note, we run through the final decisions and implications for potential UK revenue share.
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