VOC - Vocus Group

[So_Cynical]

Smashed again today. Anyone dipping in again?

A small parcel to add to my main portfolio, $4.24.

 

[notting]

In general
The problem for the Government is that they are idealogically locked on to trying to make a return on a massive infrastructure project in a totally unrealistic timeframe. Australia's internet infrastructure has already been terminally damaged by Turnbull's ignorance of tech (despite his undeserved reputation), and it wont be easy to make progress with the luddites from the far right that control the Government.

That is the biggest load of BS.

Turnbull has been handed the most disgusting and monstrously stupid infrustructure spend (NBN) & waist of money the country has ever seen.

Rudds demented NBN plan was lampooned from every corner of the room by anybody who understood the Telco set up in Australia. It is seen as a joke that came out of the then idiot Prime Minister Rudd maddness and that was even before the massive blow outs in how much it was really going to cost came to the for when the Liberals had to manage it.

Turnbull is trying to make it work which is simply not possible.

Rudd has recreated the grossly inefficient monopoly, that Telstra was, at huge expense. The NBN will never make a return and continue to haemorrhage until it is surpassed by wireless tech.

All the administration can do is squeeze as much out of the Telco’s as possible to try to minimise the haemorrhaging.
You are just starting to see the damage and then you will see the cost to the consumer that you and the country, with it's now massive debt, has paid a huge cost to achieve this terrible setup. All the idiots that agreed by voting labor should be made to pay for it and own it.

 

[skc]

The debt is serviceable, no problems there and the underlying business is growing.

Here's UBS' take on underlying organic growth.

 

[Klogg]

Here's UBS' take on underlying organic growth.
[ x ]

Thanks. I had read that earlier, but really didn't feel comfortable with using the Q4 run-rate to assume things would grow from that base, especially given the answer to an analyst question (from FY16 call) regarding estimated FY17 earnings.

What I would add to that list of items is the allocation of costs to achieve synergies. You can't just merge two businesses (or four in this case) together and expect to save costs without some initial increased expenditure.
Some of it would be capex, but surely not all of it. Where has this been mentioned/allocated?

 

[galumay]

That is the biggest load of BS.

And your post is typical of the RWNJ spin that has been promoted about the most important infrastructure project in modern times. In the end you are just taking a viewpoint based purely on your political predjudices with an obvious ignorance of the technology.

Turnbull's failure to understand the technology and the importance of the infrastructure upgrade will be a significant handicap to Australia going forward as we fall further behind the rest of the world in this crucial aspect of modern society.

BTW, wireless is not going to 'surpass' fibre.

This point is really not relevant to the topic of VOC, other than informing of the difficulties RSP face because of the Government's unrealistic timeframes for a profitable return from the NBN, so lets leave the vitriol towards those who hold different political views to yours for another place.

 

[McLovin]

Here's UBS' take on underlying organic growth.

View attachment 68978

The old target was $380m-$400m. From the AGM...

- Additional investment of $4m-$5m in corporate and wholesale sales and marketing

- The loss of a fibre build contract. The amount isn't stated but it was $14m EBITDA in FY16 (weighted $10m/$4m).

Those two items probably explain a fair chunk of the difference.

If NBN connections are running ahead of where they were forecast to be, then there will be an increase in upfront expense for existing subscribers transitioning to NBN.

There was also an investment in consumer sales and marketing which has not borne fruit because of the platform outage issues. Which will weight earnings to 2H17 assuming the platform issues and associated churn are indeed temporary and behind them now.

The big prize is the NBN. At the moment they are creaming NBN subscriptions, with $ margins virtually the same as what they're getting in copper broadband. So UBS is probably right that earnings in consumer are declining, but it's hard to see it as much more than a short term issue and subscriptions, especially in NBN, are growing very quickly.

Worth noting that UBS has a $6 PT as well.

 

[Klogg]

The amount isn't stated but it was $14m EBITDA in FY16 (weighted $10m/$4m)

Just out of curiousity, where did you find the split?

 

[McLovin]

Just out of curiousity, where did you find the split?

The slide 15 commentary in the AGM notes.

 

[Klogg]

The slide 15 commentary in the AGM notes.

View attachment 68981

Well that should have been obvious. Thank you

 

[notting]

AIn the end you are just taking a viewpoint based purely on your political predjudices with an obvious ignorance of the technology.

The opinion I expressed is based purely on the economics of it.

Anyone with half a brain can see that. Why do you think no private sector company, not even Telstra would touch it with a 10-foot pole even with some government assistance?

I was and am close and was then to the smartest people in Telstra who were actually writing the contracts for Telstra and the government!!!!
Apart from having a brain of my own, it was very clear how costly and insane this idea was.
Telstra was laughing all the way to their bank and it naturally set them off on the biggest bull run in the stock since the float. Gee can't imagine why.:silly:

Meanwhile, how's the new lumbering monopoly rollout going?

Your position is profoundly stupid perhaps analysis isn't your thing.

For God's sake don't you invest without advice -
Here's a link to assist you to find a more suitable arena for your contemplations - Like minded investers

PS I didn't vote for Turnbull.:bonk:

 

[Klogg]

Why do you think no private sector company, not even Telstra would touch it with a 10-foot pole even with some government assistance?

I would have thought the ACCC wouldn't have wanted a private company to have such a monopoly, so the regulation around owning the asset wouldn't have been worthwhile.

Also, I have to ask - how will wireless overtake the NBN? The cost of wireless towers is very high, and it all requires a backhaul...

 

[So_Cynical]

The NBN will never make a return and continue to hemorrhage until it is surpassed by wireless tech.

^Fantasy - did you vote for Hanson?

 

[notting]

The driveling little dweed (Rudd) in his original plan had us up for 20 billion more until Turnbull adjusted it with these devastating consequences -

nbn is also working to deliver high speed broadband to Australia up to eight years sooner and for $20 billion less of taxpayers’ money than if we rolled out a full fibre network from this point in time.

Often the argument boils down to anecdotal evidence about the state of the existing copper lines in the street.

Much of this anecdotal evidence is misleading or just plain wrong.

The reality is that even in our FTTN deployment we are already replacing the majority of copper running from the exchange to end-user premises. Yet the copper that runs from the street cabinet to the home is being left in place.

So far, in our FTTN deployment we have not had to replace any copper – or perform any substantial remediation work – to the copper running from our street cabinets to end-user premises with new fibre.

All we have had to do so far is very basic work in removing bridge-taps – basically redundant copper lines - in order to optimise network performance.

What Turnbull is doing is far more tenable.

As an aside regarding benefits and fantasy - Now all our promising and brightest young minds will be able to whatch 3D pr0n with less interruptions and for even longer making for huge leaps in the suffocation of productivity, inovation and development of the most intelligent and even ordinary minds in our community.

 

[galumay]

Your position is profoundly stupid perhaps analysis isn't your thing.

For God's sake don't you invest without advice -
Here's a link to assist you to find a more suitable arena for your contemplations - Like minded investers

Notting, people who resort to personal attacks in the absence of an ability to articulate discussion in defence of their world view, usually end up having a very distorted and inaccurate world view. That would appear to be the case with you.

You are not adding anything to the discussion about VOC, and to be honest its largely just a spray of vitriol.

I am not going to drag it further off topic by giving you a lesson from someone whose company actually works in the sector, but trust me you are quite incorrect about the unholy mess that Turnbull has created with MTM and FTTN. Probably not a good idea to use Telstra employees as a source of wisdom on this space either!

Lets move on and leave this thread to its intent, and please do try to challenge the argument in future rather than engaging in ad hominem attacks.

It does seem VOC has found support at around the $4.20 mark, I will be quite chuffed if I have accidently managed to enter so near the bottom of the dip!

 

[Klogg]

As an aside regarding benefits and fantasy - Now all our promising and brightest young minds will be able to whatch 3D pr0n with less interruptions and for even longer making for huge leaps in the suffocation of productivity, inovation and development of the most intelligent and even ordinary minds in our community.

This is a very wrong way of thinking. Yes, there will be many users streaming QHD videos and the like, but there are many positive effects.
- What about the home business that can run more effectively because their cloud backups are seamless?
- What about the aspiring developer moving virtual hard disks around from their machine to the Cloud environments without the 10hour wait time because upload speeds are horrible?
- What about the productivity improvements of those working from home?

I can go on, but there are definitely benefits to a faster internet. Data is becoming increasingly critical, and the ability to transfer it faster shouldn't be overlooked.

Additionally, you'll find new software that takes advantage of the better hardware (fibre) is developed very very quickly. The effect is compounding.

 

[mcgrath111]

CGF have upped there substantial holding (may not be worth noting, but may spur some confidence to give it a little push in the right direction; I was waiting for it to happen sooner or later.)

Could anyone provide me some insight into the technicals atm, or is it too soon die to volatility?


(On a random side note and adding to the nature of derailing this thread ...I noticed someone in a brief sense comparing vocus to arrium hahaha)


Cheers,

 

[notting]

This is a very wrong way of thinking. Yes, there will be many users streaming QHD videos and the like, but there are many positive effects.
- What about the home business that can run more effectively because their cloud backups are seamless?
- What about the aspiring developer moving virtual hard disks around from their machine to the Cloud environments without the 10hour wait time because upload speeds are horrible?
- What about the productivity improvements of those working from home?

I was being a bit mischievous with that but also making a point.
Of course, the internet has many benefits. It's odd that the working from home thing has not been embraced by the internet already and schooling.

The current tech is well capable, as it is, to provide all that as well as remote diagnosis and skyping which is about the only thing Labor could site as one of the foreseeable revolutionary benefits of its 47 Billion questionable binge on fiber to the house in the face of the most rapidly developing and technology that is superseding itself in very short time periods.

In the same way that Labor argued the 'NBN will bring benefits we haven't even thought of' you can argue that 'the NBN technology will be superseded by mobile capabilities with technology not even thought of' that will develop organically.

It's a two-sided coin, especially when not born of free market forces. It tends to be more distorted when big government spending is behind such.

On a more serious note, however, I do think the pr0n thing is hugely problematic and its consequences could be quite devastating on our society as a whole and even our liberty.

The free speech democracies have always had an advantage with creative thinking and subsequent innovation that has kept us one step ahead militarily and more generally of propaganda manipulated countries.
I feel the flourishing of easy access pr0n could limit creativity and innovation and give countries that limit the easy access and control of their internet an unforeseen advantage. It's a huge counterproductive and counter-creative distraction.

The words Fiddling while Rome burns are never more evident than now - global warming, reefs dying, forests disappearing whilst everyone's on their phone/computer.
Innovative solutions have never before been more necessary, however, the conditions for it have become almost impossible. The internet allows for it but also allows for the opposite and if you look at the search statistics it's pretty clear to see where all the energy is going!

The world could be in for a tough time!

 

[Klogg]

I was being a bit mischievous with that but also making a point.
Of course, the internet has many benefits. It's odd that the working from home thing has not been embraced by the internet already and schooling.

The current tech is well capable, as it is, to provide all that as well as remote diagnosis and skyping which is about the only thing Labor could site as one of the foreseeable revolutionary benefits of its 47 Billion questionable binge on fiber to the house in the face of the most rapidly developing and technology that is superseding itself in very short time periods.

In the same way that Labor argued the 'NBN will bring benefits we haven't even thought of' you can argue that 'the NBN technology will be superseded by mobile capabilities with technology not even thought of' that will develop organically.

I agree we don't know all the benefits, but that doesn't mean a thing. When the internet was created, who could have known it would lead to this. Similarly, a huge increase in bandwidth could result in new technologies we have not thought of just yet.
I know that's not much of an argument because it can apply to almost anything, but the exponential growth in technology really should make use of this in no time.

On a more serious note, however, I do think the pr0n thing is hugely problematic and its consequences could be quite devastating on our society as a whole and even our liberty.

It's a problem, but not as big as one might think. The endless distraction from FB, Twitter, arguably these forums are all potentially devastating. But there are consequences to everything we introduce, and we deal with it. Increasing access to pr0n is no different.

The words Fiddling while Rome burns are never more evident than now - global warming, reefs dying, forests disappearing whilst everyone's on their phone/computer.
Innovative solutions have never before been more necessary, however, the conditions for it have become almost impossible. The internet allows for it but also allows for the opposite and if you look at the search statistics it's pretty clear to see where all the energy is going!

The world could be in for a tough time!

Very true, and I agree. And whilst this is WAY off topic, I'll ask it anyway. How do you make the right people care for something that could happen 50 or 100 years out, when the most influential people will be long gone by then?

 

[mcgrath111]

News came out regarding the Singapore cable. Not really big news as previously already outlined in there plans.

Stock price seems to be under pressure, hoping that it doesn't drop below the $4 mark. If it does, I think I'll just turn a blind eye to my holding for the time being and check back in a few months, after the hype goes down.

Being contrarian in nature, a buy & hold shouldn't hurt for the time being.

 

[MrChow]

What sort of ROI does Vocus expect for the $227m spend?