Winners and losers in the Telecompaper Stock Index European Telecoms roughly balanced each other out in week 13. Still, the index was down 1.6 percent versus a gain of 1.4 percent for the EuroStoxx 50 index. This was the result mainly of the heavyweights Deutsche Telekom (-5.4%) and Vodafone (-3.1%) both booking losses. Altice Europe (+18%) was the week's winner, followed closely by the pennystock Forthnet (+18%). 1&1 Drillisch (-16%), Veon (-14%), Go Internet (-12%) and Turk Telekom (-12%) suffered double digit losses.
Headlines
Last week's biggest news came from BT (-1.2%), considering a major restructuring round including job cuts of no less than 25 percent, according to Bloomberg. TIM (+5.4%), also according to press reports, is looking to sell TIM Brasil. In Denmark a multiband auction was concluded, leaving TDC (unlisted) the biggest buyer. TT Net, the joint venture of Telia (-0.5%) and Telenor (-0.9%), as well as 3 Denmark, a unit of CK Hutchison (-1.6%), also picked up spectrum. Altice Europe closed the sale of 49.99 percent of SFR FTTH, the French fibre company, to a number of investors. The company stated that the newly created joint venture was accelerating the roll-out of fibre networks. Altice Europe also reported on Q4.
Germany
In Germany, the planned merger of Vodafone's German unit with Liberty Global's (-4.3%) Unitymedia drew opposition from a number of industry groups. Meanwhile, the German spectrum auction crossed the EUR 1 billion mark in proceeds, from bidders Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Telefonica Deutschland (-4.8%) and United Internet (-4.7%). The latter also published its Q4 results, as did Tele Columbus.
YTD
Year-to-date, our index is up 4.8 percent, trailing the EuroStoxx 50 (+11.7%). The best performing stocks include the satellite operators Inmarsat (+46%) and Iridium (+43%), as well as takeover candidate Manx Telecom (+40%) and Altice Europe (+38%). The laggards include Tele Columbus (-44%), 1&1 Drillisch (-29%) and Intelsat (-28%).
