reports
- Russell Waller
Orange (Buy, TP: €15.8, +19%) MasOrange (Equal Weight) It’s not all a...
We have been long-term Buyers of Orange, and are pleased about the YTD share price performance (+37% vs the sector +10%). Some of that outperformance is probably due to the prospect of French market repair (France is 56% of the value), but actually it is the Spanish and AME divisions that cause our target to rise to €15.8 from €14.9 post the Q2 results.
- Russell Waller
Orange (Buy, TP: €14.9, +14%) Q2 25: EBITDA guidance lifted thanks to...
Orange has reported a solid set of results, with Telco EBITDA c+0.3% ahead of consensus, and has lifted Group EBITDAaL guidance thanks to AME. French KPIs are solid, but French retail SR growth has turned negative y/y. There are some encouraging signs on French front-book low-end mobile pricing in July (HERE), but clearly overall conditions remain difficult (albeit Orange is doing a good job of off-setting those difficulties at the EBITDAaL level in France).
- 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.
- 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.
- Russell Waller
Altice International (Equal Weight) Sale process Hot-ting up in Israe...
Bezeq has confirmed that its subsidiary, Pelephone, has made an offer for Altice International’s Israeli business, Hot Mobile, HERE, for NIS2bn (c€500m). In addition, it seems that Cellcom and Hot have sold their stakes in IBC, HERE. Cellcom has sold its 23% stake for NIS520m (c€130m), and we would assume that Altice has sold its 23% stake for the same amount. In this report we look at the implications of the sales for ATCI lenders.
- Russell Waller
Altice France (Overweight) Iliad (Equal Weight) Bouygues (Buy, TP: €55...
There have been several recent articles about French M&A. The latest article from TMT finance yesterday has some fairly specific details, and most importantly, seems to suggest that the price demanded for SFR is now approaching what we would see as fair value.
- James Ratzer
- Russell Waller
- 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.
- James Ratzer
The company started seeing signs of recovery as subscriber losses begu...
As we expected, the UK merger completed this morning, so we wanted to take this opportunity to highlight the note we put out on Saturday, in which we published our new model (including the UK merger, and assuming Vodafone buys out the Hutchinson minority in 3 years’ time). The terms of the deal are as initially announced. We believe the value creation is +9p per share, included within our 120p price target. We still see >50% upside from current levels.
- James Ratzer
Vodafone (Buy, 120p, +56%) Was 135p Target price/ model update: T...
We don't usually aim to publish price target updates over the weekend, so please do forgive us, but with today being May 31st and Vodafone's desire to close the UK merger during H1 and at a month-end, we would like to think that the UK deal closing could be very imminent - and maybe even today.
- James Ratzer
Vodafone (Buy, 135p, +82%) FY 2025: Trying to move the debate on from ...
The broad theme of Vodafone’s results remains the same as in past periods: Germany has been disappointing and has been the main focus of the market, but other parts of the business have been able to offset it, with increasing weight now on Vodacom for FY26.
- James Ratzer
Vodafone (Buy, 135p, +87%) Vodafone CFO departing: Quick thoughts
Vodafone has announced that Luka Mucic will be stepping down as Vodafone CFO by year-end, after only taking on the role in September 2023. We run through some quick thoughts on this move here and set out our estimates ahead of results in 2 weeks time
- James Ratzer
Vodafone (Buy, 135p, +93%) Vodacom upside undervalued
When talking about Vodafone with market participants, almost all of the discussion tends to be on Germany. However, this morning my colleague Chris has upgraded his estimates for Vodacom and we have increased our target from ZAR150 to ZAR180 – with the full details published here. We believe the positive benefits from Vodacom are being overlooked in the Vodafone share price and we re-visit that thesis in this note with an updated view on Vodafone.
- Russell Waller
Orange (Buy, TP: €15.4, +24%) Q1 25: Solid numbers, guidance reiterat...
Orange has reported a solid set of results, with Telco revenue and EBITDA in-line with consensus expectations; the important French SR trends are slightly weaker (but ahead of consensus expectations), but all guidance for Group and divisions (including France) has been reiterated.
- 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
Vodafone (Buy, 135p, +87%) India value extraction on the horizon?
Vodafone’s lock-up in India expires at the end of this month. Given the news today on a debt-for-equity swap involving the Indian Government at Vodafone Idea, we explore the implications of this and whether there could be a surprise value crystallisation for Vodafone on the cards.
- James Ratzer
- Russell Waller
M&A policy update – thoughts from Brussels and London with Pablo Asbo
It’s pretty clear that in-market M&A is a hot topic which we addressed in more detail in our recent sector M&A note. One of the reasons why speculation is rising about further deals is twofold we think: 1. Recent remedies in UK and Spain were non-intrusive in a historical context, making the deals attractive on a net basis; and 2. Politicians seem to be becoming more amenable to M&A, most notably Mario Draghi, and some are hoping that regulatory/legislative support will follow.
- James Ratzer
- Russell Waller
Orange (Buy, TP: €15.7, +35%) Altice France (SFR) (Most Preferred) Ili...
We were in Barcelona for the MWC this week. Please reach out if you would like to discuss any of the myriad of announcements made there. The biggest Telcos seemed to have focused their fire on in-market consolidation, with comments by the CEOs of Orange, DT and Telefonica.
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