Last week in telecoms: earnings reports, Virgin Media migrates its MVNO, Deutsche Telekom sees T-Mobile US merger progress

The Telecompaper European Telecoms Services index was down 0.3 percent in week 45, versus a gain of 2.1 percent for the EuroStoxx 50 index. The week was heavy with earnings reports, with some M&A news. Tele Columbus was the best stock to own last week, up 15 percent. At a closing price of EUR 2.45 it has come off considerably from its low of EUR 1.29 in early June. BT’s loss of 8.0 percent put it among the week’s worst losers. The company stands to lose Virgin Mobile as an MVNO customer from 2021, according to Telecompaper.

Earnings reports came in from these companies.

• Deutsche Telekom (-1.2% for the week) and its listed subsidiaries OTE (-1.3%) and Magyar Telekom (-0.1%), as well as T-Mobile US. The latter further launched a new series of Uncarrier initiatives, announced as pledges to the public and the government in relation to the Sprint takeover that the FCC recently approved.
• Telecom Italia/TIM (+2.4%) and its listed companies Intred (-1.6%) and Inwit (-5.3%) . TIM further partnered with Santander on banking and with Google on cloud computing.
• Telefonica (-0.7%) and its listed unit Telefonica Germany (-1.0%).
• Incumbents Rostelecom (+0.3%) and Syn (+2.4%).
• Cable companies Liberty Global (-2.4%) and NOS (+1.1%).
• Challenger Freenet (+7.6%) and mobile operator VEON (-2.3%).
• Infrastructure companies Zayo (unchanged), InterXion (-7.9%) and Retelit (-2.4%).

On the M&A market, there was news on several ongoing deals.

• Inmarsat’s (+2.3%) sale could be in danger, now that a small shareholder called for attention to an Inmarsat unit in the US that may not have been properly valued.
• Some InterXion (-7.9%) shareholders are unhappy about the takeover proce agreed with Digital Realty (-8.1%), even though this is an all-shares deal, for apparently there hasn’t been a bidding process with other potential buyers.
• The acquisition of Greek ISP Forthnet (+2.2%) could be coming to a close.
• Other deals: Mobilezone (-2.8%) did a takeover, QSC (+4.1%) expanded into AI and MasMovil (+4.5%) sold almost 1 million FTTH units, as was reported before.

Other news.

• Virgin Media, a unit of Liberty Global (-2.4%), will migrate its MVNO from BT (-8.0%) to Vodafone’s (+2.4%) UK unit in 2021.
• KPN (+1.2%) launched an offer for 8.375% notes due 2030.
• Iridium (unchanged) closed a USD 1.5 billion loan.
• Proximus (+1.3%) reached a deal with the unions on a restructuring.