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VOD Vodafone Group Plc

70.46
1.04 (1.50%)
28 Mar 2024 - Closed
Delayed by 15 minutes
Share Name Share Symbol Market Type Share ISIN Share Description
Vodafone Group Plc LSE:VOD London Ordinary Share GB00BH4HKS39 ORD USD0.20 20/21
  Price Change % Change Share Price Shares Traded Last Trade
  1.04 1.50% 70.46 69,814,691 16:35:26
Bid Price Offer Price High Price Low Price Open Price
70.63 70.66 70.72 69.70 69.96
Industry Sector Turnover Profit EPS - Basic PE Ratio Market Cap
Radiotelephone Communication EUR 45.71B EUR 11.84B EUR 0.4372 1.62 19.13B
Last Trade Time Trade Type Trade Size Trade Price Currency
17:18:49 O 247,831 70.45 GBX

Vodafone (VOD) Latest News (5)

Vodafone (VOD) Discussions and Chat

Vodafone Forums and Chat

Date Time Title Posts
28/3/202415:59Vodaphone - 5G Into The Blue 8,088
25/3/202417:00Vodafone - Charts & News3,169
18/12/202308:38VODAFONE - TARGET OF 65P390
13/10/202312:07OCTESTING1
28/9/202313:54VODAFONE IS A MAGGOT106

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Vodafone (VOD) Most Recent Trades

Trade Time Trade Price Trade Size Trade Value Trade Type
17:18:4970.45247,831174,596.94O
17:17:0870.40140,75599,094.34O
17:15:1670.159,0026,314.72O
17:13:5670.10758531.34O
17:12:4370.4315,22010,719.60O

Vodafone (VOD) Top Chat Posts

Top Posts
Posted at 28/3/2024 08:20 by Vodafone Daily Update
Vodafone Group Plc is listed in the Radiotelephone Communication sector of the London Stock Exchange with ticker VOD. The last closing price for Vodafone was 69.42p.
Vodafone currently has 27,078,384,895 shares in issue. The market capitalisation of Vodafone is £19,133,586,767.
Vodafone has a price to earnings ratio (PE ratio) of 1.62.
This morning VOD shares opened at 69.96p
Posted at 28/3/2024 11:38 by philanderer
Nice buy.

------------


Berenberg: Changing Vodafone is a different investment case


Vodafone (VOD) is a different investment case to a year ago but there are still operational risks, says Berenberg.

Analyst Carl Murdock-Smith retained his ‘hold’ recommendation and increased the target price from 75p to 78p on the Citywire Elite Companies AAA-rated telecoms giant, which climbed 1.1% to 69.4p yesterday. The shares have shed half their value over the past five years.

Murdock-Smith said chief executive Margherita Della Valle gave a ‘frank assessment of Vodafone’s “need to change”’ at last year’s annual results, ‘and changed it has’.

‘With completion of the sale of its Spanish operations imminent, the UK merger approval process well underway, and the planned Italian disposal announced earlier this month, Vodafone now has a different investment case to that of a year ago,’ he said.

However, Murdock-Smith noted that ‘operational risks are significant in the coming quarters, such as German cable TV unbundling and managing any possible dyssynergies from the smaller ongoing footprint, while foreign exchange risk remains high, mostly in relation to Turkey and Egypt’.



citywire.com
Posted at 19/3/2024 17:50 by davius
Stockwatch: is it time to buy Vodafone shares?

Vodafone’s finances can look worrying, but analyst Edmond Jackson likes the investment case and believes this director’s share buying is too big to ignore.

19th March 2024 12:26

by Edmond Jackson from interactive investor

Share trading by a chief financial officer (CFO) can be the most pertinent to watch given they are closest to company finances, and not being as well paid as a CEO, may mean exercising greater care.

Many director dealings announcements nowadays involve non-executive directors given executives have substantial share option schemes, although such purchases can be to comply with contractual obligations that they hold a certain amount of shares rather than a reaction to value offered.

So it is an eye-popper how Luka Mucic, the CFO of Vodafone, has spent over £1.7 million on shares in the company at 69.6p. It is the biggest share purchase by a CFO I have ever seen. For context, page 191 of the 2022 annual report cites £7 million total annual director remuneration by way of salaries and incentive schemes. It would have been far better to show what each director gets by way of remuneration elements, but still implies he could have staked at least three years of his after-tax income in this deal.

In most situations, such a buy would have electrified interest, but it is a reflection of current jaundice towards telecom stocks, how Vodafone Group slipped nearly 4% yesterday to close at 67.6p. Indeed, BT Group fell the exact same amount to 105p. In early dealings today, the erosion continued.

It raises stark questions about pricing of FTSE 100 stocks which you would assume is reasonably efficient. Yet the market is trending opposite to what a CFO implies, screaming value. In one of his annual reports, Warren Buffett has written words to the effect: “A stock that is large and widely followed can be the more irrationally valued.”

Is market right or wrong with Vodafone shares near all-time low?
Its current level is just above the 63p multi-decade low seen just a month or so ago, albeit well down on highs of over 200p in 2014 to 2017. You could regard the chart as potentially in the early stage of building a support level, but this is not in place and a bullish “bowl” formation would be some way off, for what chart folklore is worth.

If consensus forecasts are at all credible, the dividend yield is currently just over 11% based on a payout of 9 euro cents for the year ended 31 March 2024, and about 5.7% based on the planned halving of the dividend for the current financial year.

In principle, this not only looks a highly attractive yield but, if by any means realistic, implies the stock also at some point will rise. In practice, it flags perception of high financial risks and many investors have been attracted to Vodafone’s yield, then suffered paper losses.

Last November’s interim results to 30 September portrayed a declining dynamic with a 4% reduction in revenue but 44% drop in operating profit to €1.7 billion (£1.4 billion) - classic “operational gearing”. Higher interest rates on €58 billion of net debt then whittled pre-tax profit down by 67% to €550 million and to a net loss after a €705 million tax charge. The only positive being that tax authorities have taken a higher view of profit.

An uneasy income statement continued into the cash flow profile, where investment took €3.8 billion of €5.5 billion generated from operations, down 12%. Some €5.5 billion then justifiably went on repaying borrowings, €1.1 billion on interest and nearly €1.4 billion on various dividends. The total financing outflow was € 6.4 billion and net cash outflow €4.6 billion. So, while the recent dividend policy has been possible, the market has perceived it as not necessarily prudent.

Vodafone - financial summary
Year end 31 Mar

2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Revenue (€ million) 49,810 47,631 46,571 43,666 44,974 43,809 45,580 45,706
Operating margin (%) 2.7 7.8 9.2 -2.2 9.1 11.7 12.8 31.3
Operating profit (€m) 1,320 3,725 4,299 -951 4,099 5,129 5,813 14,296
Net profit (€m) -5,405 -6,297 2,439 -8,020 -920 59.0 2,237 11,838
Reported EPS (euro cents) -20.3 -7.8 15.8 -16.2 -3.1 0.2 7.7 42.6
Normalised EPS (cents) -18.0 -9.8 16.3 -6.7 -7.9 2.6 8.3 13.0
Ops cashflow/share (cents) 53.7 50.8 48.8 47.0 59.1 58.0 62.1 65.0
Capex/share (cents) 52.0 31.7 29.3 29.5 25.8 29.1 31.1 33.2
Free cashflow/share (cents) 1.7 19.2 19.5 17.5 33.2 28.9 31.0 31.8
Dividend/share (cents) 14.4 14.8 15.1 9.2 8.9 9.2 9.0 8.9
Earnings cover (x) -1.4 -0.5 1.1 -1.8 -0.4 0.0 0.8 4.8
Return on capital (%) 1.0 3.3 4.0 -0.8 3.0 4.1 4.8 11.8
Cash (€m) 18,259 14,955 13,469 26,649 20,646 14,980 15,427 18,722
Net debt (€m) 38,793 31,314 29,512 26,306 54,279 52,780 54,665 47,668
Net asset value (€m) 83,325 72,200 67,640 62,218 61,410 55,804 54,783 63,399
Net asset value/share (cents) 314 271 254 228 229 198 193 235
Source: historic company REFS and company accounts

Yet confirmation on 15 March of the sale of Vodafone Italy to Swisscom for €8 billion upfront cash implies the balancing act stands a fair chance of continuing, versus nearly €2.5 billion going out as dividends – based on the 9 cents per share annual payout - with $4 billion said to be returned to shareholders via buybacks.

Obviously, disposals are no enduring prop, the underlying trajectory of operations is vital. A 5 February trading update in respect of Vodafone’s third quarter to end-2023, cited organic growth of 4.7% despite disposals meaning a slight 1.4% slip in reported revenue. It was reassuring how 14 out of 17 markets were said to be growing.

Nods to modernisation were made by way of Cloud and Internet of Things services growing over 20%, probably small in an overall context. “We’ve also begun strategic partnerships with Microsoft and Accenture to fast-track our transformation,̶1; it said.

Germany edged slightly better, with both reported and organic growth up 0.3% to near €2.9 billion. Yet there appears unease in the market about how this division constitutes a quarter of group revenue and its chief executive of two years is being replaced. Frets also exist about whether a merger with Three in the UK will pass regulatory scrutiny.

The shares do however look to price in much of this distress. If consensus for around €2.0 billion net profit in the current year to 31 March is fair, the forward price/earnings (PE) ratio is around 9x, although it’s unclear quite how realistic is the €2.4 billion profit targeted for March 2025.

With 75% of €61.6 billion net assets constituting goodwill/intangibles, €15.2 billion net tangible assets imply 48p a share – assets ultimately being worth what they can earn.

Significant uncertainty is involved here but my sense is that the CFO thinks this works more in his favour – to grasp substantial Vodafone equity at its current price, despite its "falling knife" semblance.

If fundamentals were deteriorating to an extent that it leaves equity value exposed, hedge funds would be over Vodafone like a rash. But you have to go back to 2022 to find any. Marshall Wace, which I tend to regard as a benchmark for well-judged short-selling, went below 0.5% exposure in autumn 2021. Who knows if it is still short?

BT, by comparison, has nearly 2.6% of its share capital out on loan, with AKO Capital having edged over 0.9% on 7 March, while the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board stayed flat at 0.5% and BlackRock, also Kintbury Capital, trimmed theirs slightly below 0.6%. Those are still substantial shorts for a £10 billion company and, as of last September, none were disclosed. To an extent they will be taking a view on telecoms besides BT specifically.

For me, the sheer scale of this director buying – and it being the CFO – tilts me towards a sense that the shares have fallen to a level where risk/reward has become attractive. Sentiment is too dire versus Vodafone’s underlying dynamic.

Obviously, most of us do not have the income base of senior telecoms bosses should things not turn out as hoped. But this trade looks an indicator to consider averaging in. Buy.
Posted at 16/3/2024 06:20 by unastubbs
Analysis The Times

At the turn of the millennium, Vodafone adverts featured a youthful David Beckham sending pictures of his sunny new home in Madrid to his England team-mates sitting in a rainy tent on what now looks like a museum-piece phone (Katie Prescott writes). During those heady early days of mobile, the demand for connectivity was insatiable and it showed in the numbers. In March 2000, the height of the internet bubble,Vodafone̵7;s share price was about 526p. Today it languishes at 68p. After years of bosses trying to revitalise Vodafone, it looks like Margherita Della Valle, its latest chief executive, may have turned a corner. The sale of the company’s Italian division and the announcement of a windfall for shareholders is the culmination of her promise to slim down the business. The share price boost shows just how much investors have welcomed this and her prudent decision to cut future dividends. Only a year after taking over, Della Valle, 58, has fulfilled her promise to dispose of chronically under-performing assets in Spain and Italy, as well as firing the starting gun on a merger with Three in Britain. Yet the latest announcement gives with one hand and takes away with the other. The kicker for those who follow the company closely was news from the German division, which makes up almost a third of the group’s services revenue. The replacement of the Germany chief executive, who was put forward only two years ago as a saviour for the division, is a flashing red light that the business continues to limp painfully along. The question now is: what can realistically be done about it? In addition, there remains a question mark over whether the Three deal will pass the competition watchdog’s scrutiny. Away from European markets and in the hunt for growth, Della Valle, a Vodafone lifer and former chief financial officer, has said that Africa and business customers are firmly in her sights. Is this strategy the silver bullet that will return Vodafone to its former glory? It is too early to say, but the company is more focused and agile than it was.
Posted at 15/3/2024 07:33 by simon8
yup, halved divi for 2025, guess was inevitable given company mismanagement, - but the divi was the main reason i held this crock of the proverbial..., lots of promises of jam tomorrow - pretty poor management of the company all round to leave it in this state.
More share buybacks...why? Why not grasp the nettle and use the proceeds to slash debt and the interest mountain - share buybacks are little more than a sticking plaster and don't in my view generally result in an increased share price, all money for the boys in the city!
Will be ken to see which way the share price goes on opening, I suspect south quickly. But i guess the cheaper the share price the more they can buyback with the allocated funds....urgh!
Posted at 02/3/2024 01:59 by kiwi2007
I don't think there's anything happening especially, just that the market is spotting value;

VOD
is a stock many investors are watching right now. VOD is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), as well as a Value grade of A. The stock is trading with P/E ratio of 10.20 right now. For comparison, its industry sports an average P/E of 10.46. Over the last 12 months, VOD's Forward P/E has been as high as 12.20 and as low as 9.02, with a median of 10.03.

Another notable valuation metric for VOD is its P/B ratio of 0.35. The P/B ratio pits a stock's market value against its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. This company's current P/B looks solid when compared to its industry's average P/B of 1.03. Over the past year, VOD's P/B has been as high as 0.57 and as low as 0.33, with a median of 0.38.

Value investors will likely look at more than just these metrics, but the above data helps show that Vodafone Group is likely undervalued currently. And when considering the strength of its earnings outlook, VOD sticks out at as one of the market's strongest value stocks.
Posted at 29/2/2024 17:30 by veryniceperson
Vodafone (NASDAQ:VOD) rose 3.2% in trading in London amid renewed takeover speculation. Vodafone ADRs gained 3.1% in premarket trading.There's speculation that there may be interest for a full takeover of Vodafone (VOD), according to traders, who cited a Betaville "rare" alert on Thursday.Betaville has done several alerts on Vodafone (VOD) in recent weeks, though the Thursday report was changed to "rare" from "uncooked."Vodafone (VOD) ticked up 0.8% on Friday after a Betaville item about takeover speculation and one person following the matter heard that Goldman Sachs has been hired for a potential acquirer.Betaville reported earlier this month that Vodafone (VOD) may be a takeover target and that American telecom firms are looking at the company
Posted at 23/2/2024 16:51 by wendsworth
justiceforthemany : The Imperialist : waterloo01 : The late Friday afternoon share price movement could be indicative of something more than rumour this time.Last experienced such with some Storehouse shares back in the late 90s subsequent to which Green made his move.

Talk is an American 'asset stripping manoeuvre' on the basis that 'the VOD share price has been screwed to totally unrealistic levels' ...in which case Verizon or AT&T ? Banks already sounded out. Move imminent. No indication of prospective offer price. 40per cent premium would be my guess....in which case something near to the 90p?

No doubt the W/E Financial Press scribblers are already hard at it?

Views?
Posted at 12/2/2024 20:51 by careful
The VOD share price is low partly because the UK market is depressed.
Never saw so many cut priced shares.
Some of the prices on a risk/ reward basis are stupidly low.

But the trend is down and the algo and momentum traders are programmed tome the trend their friend.
There seems to be a. buyers strike by the institutions.(that does not include me.)

I believe there is big money to be made, but it ay take years to come to fruition.Todays combined value of BT + VOD is about £30bn.
Amazing for these cash generating companies. Combined turnover about £60bn.
Telecoms companies valued at 50% of turnover.Amazing, strange times.

In normal times the share prices would be at least twice todays level.
Posted at 07/2/2024 15:32 by davius
Is Vodafone about to cut its dividend?

After Q3 results failed to resurrect demand for the shares, one team of City analysts outlines their expectations for the dividend, financial performance and latest price target.

A 40% cut in the Vodafone Group dividend has been forecast as the City prepares for a “more constructive” payout policy alongside May’s annual results.

Vodafone shares currently yield dividend income above 11%, fuelling expectations that a big reduction is in store for the mobile phone giant’s large band of retail investors.

Chief executive Margherita Della Valle will update capital allocation priorities once 4.1 billion euros (£3.5 billion) is banked from the imminent sale of its Spain operations.

The outcome of the review should be the focus of full-year results on 14 May, potentially removing a major source of uncertainty hanging over the stock.

The London market’s one-time biggest company continues to trade at its lowest level in over two decades, despite Della Valle’s restructuring efforts in Spain and Italy and the proposed merger of UK operations with Three owner Hutchison.

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This week’s trading update also showed top-line momentum in several countries in Europe and Africa, but with Voda’s largest market of Germany still under pressure the shares are 7% lower year-to-date and below 65p this afternoon.

Bank of America says forecasting the financial outlook for Vodafone is complex and uncertain given that there are deals at various stages of progress in Spain, UK and Italy.

Its analysis suggests 2025-28 cash flows will be diluted 23% from pre-deal levels at an average 2.2 billion euros (£1.9 billion), below the 2.5 billion (£2.1 billion) current dividend outflow.

The bank said: “Our view is that while a brief period with the dividend uncovered could be considered, a three-to-four-year gap is too long and that Vodafone will choose to rebase the dividend lower to levels that could be guaranteed and used as a base to grow.”

It assumes that a cut of 40% will result in a more secure payout broadly in line with the wider sector and provide Vodafone with a buffer to deleverage.

Such a move would cut the annual dividend from nine euro cents (7.68p) to 5.4 euro cents (4.61p) a share, leading to a yield of 7%.

With the benefit of excess cash flows and disposal proceeds, the company can then consider one billion euros (£850 million) of share buybacks alongside 5% a year dividend growth.

The bank said: “As a 12% total return profile this is not unattractive and is perhaps the best way to see the ‘wood for the trees’ amid the complexity.”

This week’s note highlights a price target of 122p alongside a “buy” recommendation.

The bank added: “Restructuring is complex and Germany faces operational headwinds.

“However, looking through the complexity we envisage a new, more constructive shareholder remuneration policy and portfolio restructuring to provide scale and support better returns, or to exit where there is no route to do so.”

Among other City firms, UBS this week cut its price target by 2p to 98p but still has a “buy” rating. JP Morgan lowered from 88p to 80p with a “neutral”; stance.
Posted at 16/1/2024 11:49 by adrian j boris
Vodafone to embrace AI with £1.2bn 10-year Microsoft deal

The deal will see the services distributed to its European and African markets

By Daniel Fessahaye

Updated: 11:09 GMT, 16 January 2024



Vodafone has agreed a 10-year partnership with US tech giant Microsoft that will see the London-listed firm embrace artificial intelligence and replace physical data centres.

The deal will see Britain's biggest telecom group invest $1.5billion (£1.2billion) in customer-facing AI developed with Microsoft's Azure OpenAI and Copilot technologies.

Services associated with the deal will be distributed to more than 300 million businesses and consumers across its European and African markets.

It means Vodafone customers could soon see complaints and enquiries handled by chatbots powered by the latest generative AI technology.


The Berkshire-based company will ultimately replace physical data centres with cheaper and scalable Azure cloud services.

The deal will also see Microsoft become an equity investor in Vodafone's managed IoT (Internet of Things) platform when it is becomes a standalone business by April 2024, and help scale Vodafone's mobile financial platform in Africa.

Vodafone's chief financial officer Luka Mucic said Microsoft's leadership in AI, underpinned by its OpenAI partnership, would transform the telcom firm's customer services.

He added that a Microsoft AI-underpinned TOBi chatbot would provide more consistent and intelligent responses to queries.


Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone chief executive, said: This unique strategic partnership with Microsoft will accelerate the digital transformation of our business customers, particularly small and medium-sized companies, and step up the quality of customer experience for consumers.'

Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft, added: 'This new generation of AI will unlock massive new opportunities for every organisation and every industry around the world.

'We are delighted that together with Vodafone we will apply the latest cloud and AI technology to enhance the customer experience of hundreds of millions of people and businesses across Africa and Europe, build new products and services, and accelerate the company's transition to the cloud.'

The news comes following Vodafone's agreed merger with Three's British division, which would make the enlarged company the biggest telecoms operator in the UK, with more than 27 million subscribers.

Over a decade, the pair have pledged to invest £11billion to deliver 'one of Europe's most advanced standalone 5G networks'.

The deal is currently being investigated by the Competition and Markets Authority amid concerns that it would lead to a 'substantial lessening of competition' in the telecoms industry.

Unite the union has claimed the merger could lead to mobile phone bills rising by £300 per year, although Three's general counsel, Stephen Lerner, has said that no price hikes were being planned.

Vodafone's operating profits fell by 44.2 per cent to €1.7billion in the six months ending September, following the sale of Vantage Towers, Vodafone Hungary and Vodafone Ghana, as well as 'adverse' foreign exchange movements.

These factors also drove the firm's turnover roughly €1billion lower to €21.9billion, even though organic service revenue rose thanks to solid performances across the UK and Africa.

Vodafone shares were up 0.13 per cent to 67.25p in Tuesday morning trading.
Vodafone share price data is direct from the London Stock Exchange

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