Last week in telecoms: cross-Atlantic M&A having an impact

Nieuws Algemeen Europa 30 APR 2018
Last week in telecoms: cross-Atlantic M&A having an impact

Last week (week 18), two cros- Atlantic takeovers made waves in the telecoms sector: Comcast confirming its offer for Sky and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile US announcing a merger deal with Sprint. Our European telecoms index was up 1.0 percent, versus a rise of 0.7 percent for the EuroStoxx 50 index.

Comcast confirmed its earlier offer for Sky (+4.6%), raising the latter's share price above the former's offer value of GBP 12.5 per share. It clearly implies that investors are expecting 21st Century Fox to continue the bidding war and raise its GBP 10.75 offer. Meanwhile, Deutsche Telekom (+3.5%), through its listed subsidiary T-Mobile US, confirmed on Sunday earlier rumours of a merger deal with US rival Sprint. The all-stock transaction will reduce DT's shareholding to 42 percent, but it will still consolidate the merged entity.

More M&A

But this was not all. French investor Antin, with Goldman Sachs, made an all-cash offer for British infrastructure play CityFibre (94%), worth 81 pence per share. It turned CityFibre into the week's winner, after having been at the bottom of our basket in terms of year-to-date performance. Swedish cable firm Com Hem (+8.1%) also did well on the current Tele2 (+9.7%) offer, originally worth SEK 146 per share. The stock component of the offer, combined with Tele2's positive Q1 results, made the current value rise to SEK 153.8. Greek Forthnet (+19%), another takeover candidate, was the week's second best stock, on Q1 results. Norwegian NextGenTel (+16%) did well on an asset sale and Q1 results.

Q1 reporting

Telenet (-10%) suffered a loss on its quarterly report, dragging parent company Liberty Global (-4.0%) down with it. Rumours of Vodafone (+0.3%) coming close to an offer for Liberty's assets in Germany and Eastern Europe couldn't prevent this. Altice (-5.9%) was down on being fined EUR 125 miilion by the EC for effectuating early the takeover of Portugal Telecom in 2015.

Q1 reporting by several telcos had limited impact on the week's share price performances, with the exception of Orange Poland (-6.2%), satellite operatior SES (-4.2%), tower company Cellnex (-3.3%) and Dutch incumbent KPN (+5.3%).

YTD: Intelsat and MasMovil ahead of 4 takeover subjects

Year-to-date all stocks subject to a takeover offer are obviously doning well: Sky (+36%), CityFibre (+35%), TDC (+32%) and Com Hem (+23%). Intelsat (+206%) is, so far, the absolute winner, followed by Spanish MasMovil (+38%). This year's worst performers are VEON (-29%), Inmarsat (-23%), German micro cap Ecotel (-20%), as well as three cable firms: Telenet (-18%), Tele Columbus (-17%) and Liberty Global (-15%).

At the low end of our basket we also find French Iliad (-17%), apparently leaving investors anxious over its expansion into Ireland and Italy.

All in all, our index is down 2.3 percent, against a small gain of 0.4 percent for the EuroStoxx 50 index.

Categories:

Algemeen

Companies:

KPN,  Sprint,  TDC,  Tele2,  Vodafone,  Telenet,  Ecotel,  Com Hem,  Comcast,  Forthnet,  Iliad,  Inmarsat,  Intelsat,  Liberty Global,  Masmovil

Regions:

Europa

Tags:

Financial figures, M&A buyouts & divestments, Market research

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NOORWEGEN 27 APR 2018

NextGenTel agrees to sell Kvantel to Broadnet for NOK 250 mln

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EUROPA 27 APR 2018

Cellnex sales up another 15% to EUR 217 mln in Q1, expands board

Spanish operator Cellnex Telecom reported revenues of EUR 217 million in the first quarter of 2018, up 15 percent year on year and in line with recent quarterly results. The operator's EBITDA rose 20 percent to EUR 101 million, with net profit coming in at EUR 11 million, flat year on year in view of the impact of a 51 percent annual increase in financial costs.

WERELD 27 APR 2018

SES reports stable underlying revenues in Q1

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VERENIGDE STATEN 27 APR 2018

T-Mobile, Sprint close to merger deal, could announce next week - report

T-Mobile US and Sprint have made progress in negotiating merger terms and are aiming to successfully complete the talks as early as next week, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The news comes just a few weeks after reports the mobile operators had resumed merger talks and nearly six months after they abandoned earlier talks due to disagreement on price. 

NOORWEGEN 26 APR 2018

NextGenTel Q1 results buoyed by portfolio sale to Telia, customer base shrinks

Norwegian fixed and mobile internet service provider NextGenTel said that revenues in the first quarter of 2018 rose to NOK 377.6 million from NOK 318.3 million a year earlier, benefiting from NOK 79.8 million in proceeds from selling the consumer customer portfolio to Telia. Without this, revenues would have been NOK 297.90 million.

POLEN 26 APR 2018

Orange Poland holds Q1 EBITDA stable, driven by convergence strategy, business transformation

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BELGIË 26 APR 2018

Telenet keeps FY guidance as Q1 revenues go 1% higher

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NEDERLAND 26 APR 2018

KPN revenues slide 3.4% in Q1, outlook unchanged

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GRIEKENLAND 26 APR 2018

Forthnet revenues decrease 9% to EUR 297.5 mln in 2017

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VERENIGD KONINKRIJK 25 APR 2018

Comcast makes GBP 22 billion formal bid for Sky

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PORTUGAL 24 APR 2018

EC fines Altice EUR 125 mln for breaching EU rules over merger notification

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VERENIGD KONINKRIJK 24 APR 2018

CityFibre accepts GBP 537.8 mln takeover offer from Antin consortium

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EUROPA 23 APR 2018

Tele2 lift sales 5%, EBITDA 7% in Q1 pulled up by Baltics, Kazakhstan, Croatia

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The week in telecom: Wi-Fi bolt-ons take off to boost broadband growth, video market works on consolidation

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