reports
- 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
- James Ratzer
VirginMedia-O2 (Underweight) Q2 25 – Customer losses and ARPU growth ...
VMO2’s Q2 results show that customer losses and ARPU trends have slipped further in Q2. Although all guidance has been reiterated supported by hopes of a B2B turnaround and near-term cost measures, we think these KPI trends will make it more difficult to sustain organic EBITDA growth into FY26.
- 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
- 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
BT (Buy, 265p, +47%) Was 240p Upside beyond the mythical £3bn FCF t...
BT’s target to reach £3bn FCF by the end of the decade has almost become mythical in status. Initially set back in 2021, is it the longest-standing piece of guidance (ever) in the telecoms sector? Quite possibly – and yet we are only half-way there.
- James Ratzer
BT (Buy, £2.40, +46%) Dig a bit deeper and it is better than the headl...
Going into these results, we believe that two numbers were in focus – the Openreach line losses and the new FY26 guidance. In this note we dig into both of these in more detail and highlight why having TalkTalk as a major ISP on the Openreach network is causing them specific issues driving some of the higher line losses.
- James Ratzer
BT (Buy, £2.40, +45%) TNT Sports exit - what are the financial implica...
The FT has reported that BT could sell its 50% stake in TNT Sports to WBD – maybe this week alongside FY results on Thursday. We assess the potential financial implications of this as it might be positive vs. market perception but could be negative vs. our valuation.
- James Ratzer
- James Ratzer
- Ben Rickett
- James Ratzer
- Russell Waller
EU TELCOS: What a recessionary scenario might look like
When the news of the Trump tariffs first hit the tapes, we didn’t write anything initially as a) we didn’t think we had much of value to add to the thousands of column inches already written on the topic, and b) the direct impact from the tariffs to the EU telecoms sector is minimal – resulting in relative outperformance for the group over the past few days.
- James Ratzer
UK Telecoms Access Review What now happens beyond 2031? BT (Buy, £2.4...
Ofcom has published their long-awaited regulatory review setting out the framework for the period 2026-31. The good news is that in reality not much changes between now and 2031 – in line with expectations - and we see this as supportive for our Buy case on BT.
- James Ratzer
VirginMedia-O2 Deeper-dive post-results: Path back to 5x leverage un...
After the Liberty Global results last night (see our take here), we now have the more detailed results from VMO2. With lower than expected FCF guidance, weak on-net subscriber trends, ongoing price competition across the market, cash out for spectrum and ongoing dividend upstreaming, we think the path back to 4-5x leverage could be a challenge. As a result, we remain Underweight on the bonds.
- James Ratzer
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