SPK- Spark NZ (TELCO)

[Major von Tempsky]

Spark Digital are still bleeding high-margin business customers to competitors such as DataCom, with no end in sight.

However if you care to look at the Reuters report "BRIEF: For the six months ended 31 December 2016, Spark New Zealand Ltd revenues increased 4% to NZ$1.79B. Net income increased 13% to NZ$178M. Revenues reflect Spark Digital segment increase of 8% to NZ$658M, Spark Home, Mobile & Business segment increase of 1% to NZ$985M, Spark Connect & Platforms segment increase of 16% to NZ$22M. Net income benefited from Spark Connect & Platforms segment loss decrease of 8% to NZ$166M." Spark Digital segment increase of 8% to NZ$658M.

That's incompatible with Mr Beeblebrox' assertions which means that dear Zaphod falls into one of 3 categories (a) one of the old dedicated Telecom haters who will never let go no matter what such as Troyvdh who finishes up with unintelligible long drawn exclamations of irrational bile (b) one of the dedicated band of people who have a spouse/lover/friend/relative/neighbour working for one of Spark's competitors (c) an ex Telecom/Spark employee who left under a bit of cloud and is now looking for utu.

Pity we can't reserve this thread for rational discussion....

[couta1]

Massive volume going through over the last few days, equal number of buyers and sellers so SP trading in a few cents range. I don't think Salt will do well with their Short here.

[peat]

Spark Digital are still bleeding high-margin business customers to competitors such as DataCom, with no end in sight.

MJT
Spark Digital is their IT business as per their purchase of Gen-I (the old Wang) , so Zaphod can be right

[Major von Tempsky]

MJT
Spark Digital is their IT business as per their purchase of Gen-I (the old Wang) , so Zaphod can be right

On the other hand as he hasn't offered any tangible facts and the facts published by Spark and Reuters etc in their periodic reports don't show any evidence of Geni/Spark Digital going bankrupt or having a bad time then I prefer to remain calm and rational. Spark will report in August on it's latest results including for Spark Digital and it will be seen then how credible, if at all, Zaphod is.

It is in the nature of normal business, particularly with large enterprises, that there is a certain turnover of customers including large customers. And other customers are brought in to replace them and the overall trend is usually upwards. In Spark Digital's case by 8%. In fact if your existing customers are growing solidly then you can afford your numbers of customers to fall and yet you yourself as a business still grow on the back of growing demand.

I suppose I have been observing/investing in the NZX for about 39 years so far and I have seen and heard a number of loud Wolf! cries about companies from people who are self interested for some reason and wish to make themselves seem more important than they are and to affect the target company to make it easier for their own competitor. Some such people have ended by being banned from Sharetrader for bad behaviour....

[Zaphod]

On the other hand as he hasn't offered any tangible facts and the facts published by Spark and Reuters etc in their periodic reports don't show any evidence of Geni/Spark Digital going bankrupt or having a bad time then I prefer to remain calm and rational. Spark will report in August on it's latest results including for Spark Digital and it will be seen then how credible, if at all, Zaphod is.

When did I state or imply that Spark Digital was going bankrupt, MT? The market for IT services continues to grow but SD is not gaining new business as well as Datacom who have grown their branch network and general IT services businesses very quickly over the past 5-10 years. I suggest you speak with other professionals in the industry to gain their opinions.

i have been observing/investing in the NZX for about 39 years so far and I have seen and heard a number of loud Wolf! cries about companies from people who are self interested for some reason and wish to make themselves seem more important than they are and to affect the target company to make it easier for their own competitor. Some such people have ended by being banned from Sharetrader for bad behaviour....

Constructive debate about the merits of companies is what this board is all about. What I have observed over the years that anyone who disagrees with the "group think" is often ostracised for 'crying wolf'.

My personal opinion is that Spark remains a solid company, but that there are some significant challenges ahead as the communications business become a low-margin commoditised service, and the corporate IT services business is exposed to further competition by local and multi-national vendors. The continued development & delivery of value added services for consumers and a focus on corporate customers in the SD space are the way forward.

You are welcome is disagree of course.

[RGR367]

Personally all out now at 390 on SPK.
What I was told is all those software changes to bring them up to speed is still having issues though restructuring is still going on. Happy to hold them first after the Asian crash and recovered big time on accumulations when they took all HP employees servicing them (project Marley) to their care. Good dividend paying company still but my affinity to it lately has gone stale.
GL to all holders.

[bull....]

Personally all out now at 390 on SPK.
What I was told is all those software changes to bring them up to speed is still having issues though restructuring is still going on. Happy to hold them first after the Asian crash and recovered big time on accumulations when they took all HP employees servicing them (project Marley) to their care. Good dividend paying company still but my affinity to it lately has gone stale.
GL to all holders.

not waiting for the $4 dollar party

[Major von Tempsky]

It's a perverse Party. Spark down, Auck Airport down, Contact down, Fletcher up - just a matter of time until Feltex and Bil and JudgCorp and Standard Insurance reappear and go zooming upwards.
NZ $ must be even further up - must check that.
All those overseas shareholders are getting shifty.

About time Spark picked a date to give their next results - or have they already?

Yep, it's one of NZX's periodical perverse parties. Good news from NZ trade results so NZ $ goes up which makes Spark shares worth less to overseas holders.

[bull....]

really has trouble getting and staying over 3.90

[Major von Tempsky]

It's a really crazy and illogical situation for Spark because most of it's shareholders/shareholding live/are held overseas which won't be remedied until most of it comes back to NZ.
NZ economic growth improves - NZ dollar goes up so Spark goes down.
Inflation gets worse - NZ dollar goes up expecting higher interest rates to control inflation so Spark goes down.
Balance of Trade/Bal of Payments improves therefore NZ dollar rises and Spark goes down.
Employment improves NZ dollar goes up and Spark goes down.
Immigration increases which goes in parallel with growth so NZ dollar goes up and Spark falls.
NZ debt goes down so NZ dollar goes up and Spark goes down.

On the other hand Unemployment goes up NZ dollar goes down and Spark improves.
Inflation improves (it can't at the mo because it's zero) NZ dollar goes down and Spark improves.

Spark trading and profit improve overseas shareholders take their profit and Spark goes down.

So you can see the dice is loaded against us. Nevertheless I have a high regard for Simon Moutter's ideas and stewardship and faith that shareholders will get increasing rewards in the medium term. So I see Spark as a stable investment and prefer it to Fletcher which is in a business cycle and liable to unexpected disasters.
At the least some NZers and NZ institutions (Kiwisaver etc have increasing funds to invest in NZ) can take advantage of the skitterish overseas investors and slowly buy them out.