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  1. #1
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    Default SPK- Spark NZ (TELCO)

    Ok guys, (thank you Simon Moutter) here's our chance for a clean break with the past! No more emotional obsessed illogical Telecom haters (Troyvdh ring a bell?) and hopefully even less TA.

    I'm willing to give Simon the benefit of the doubt, and credence to the Marketing Professor on Radio at lunch time who said it's a good idea.

    I like the possibility of a higher dividend next time, the gain in mobile market share, the coming acceleration of cost cutting, the sharper focus on NZ and the have a go spirit with ShowMe. Surely ComCom will back more competition in entertainment?
    Didn't like the reduction in imputation credits, grump, grump.

  2. #2
    Advanced Member BIRMANBOY's Avatar
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    Default

    Entirely fitting that you start the new thread MVT. A new name for a new era and new innovation....moving forward into a bright new future. Good idea.
    www.dividendyield.co.nz
    Conservative Investing and dividend producers...get rich slowly!
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  3. #3
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    Default

    I'm wondering how much traction they can get with less than $20m in programming costs. As a SparkBroadband/Mobile customer, I would kind of expect it to be thrown in for free till the offering expands.

  4. #4
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Harvey Specter View Post
    I'm wondering how much traction they can get with less than $20m in programming costs. As a SparkBroadband/Mobile customer, I would kind of expect it to be thrown in for free till the offering expands.
    The subscription has to be less than $15/month with excellent content otherwise its a fail
    Netflix can be seen in NZ ..its not hard to do....base subscription price $us8/m

  5. #5
    Reincarnated Panthera Snow Leopard's Avatar
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    Lightbulb Mystery solved

    So the disappearance of SparkyTheClown from these shores is explained.

    He was bought out, at considerable expense, by Telecom NZ to remove all traces of the Spark - Clown association from a forum that occasionally discusses stocks.

    Chart has looked good the last few months

    Time only will tell if this proves to be a spark or a fizzle.

    Best Wishes
    Paper Tiger
    om mani peme hum

  6. #6
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    Default A retrospective on my time with Spark

    Quote Originally Posted by Snow Leopard View Post
    Time only will tell if this proves to be a spark or a fizzle.

    Best Wishes
    Paper Tiger
    I did my annual reconciliation on my NZ share portfolio last night, based on that 31st March tax year. The likes of the Waltzingironman would be horrified to learn I accomplished this using the good old pen and paper. But I prefer it this way, because if I had automated the whole process, I am sure that I wouldn't be able to resist firing up the computer and looking at it far too often.

    I was rather horrified at how many losers I had harboured in my NZX portfolio over 2022-2023. Only four of my twelve outperformed my comparative 'fixed interest index', those being (in order of ascendance)" PGG Wrightson, Mercury Energy, Spark and Chorus. In truth I only have a small holding in Chorus. So it was Spark that did the heavy lifting on my positive return team of four.

    Spark and I go back a long way, well before it was Spark in fact. I remember all those years ago scrambling some cash to get a minimum holding together (this was well before the days of Sharesies too). And in all the years since I have never -willingly- sold any ( I think there were a couple of capital returns where some of my shares got cancelled along the way, and some 'Telecom' cash ended back in my account.)

    If I take the number of shares I hold and divide by two, then I can look back and see the time and date I held that number of shares. This gives me a 'median share holding time', in the case of Spark, of August 2007. If my maths is correct that was 16 years ago. The price of Telecom shares as they were then (back in the day) was $4.49. So about 50c per share capital gain in 16 years is my lot? Well, I was also getting a pretty decent yield all that time. And my records show an average acquisition price over my entire period of ownership of $3.56. So I must have done some judicious selling somewhere along the way to get my average purchase price down to that level.

    Hang on, didn't I just open my story on Spark with the declaration that I had never sold any? Yes that is strictly true. But I did back out my Chorus shareholding at the price it was quoted on the first day of trading, when that shareholding 'split' from my Spark (or Telecom as it was then) holding. I think that is the right way of treating what happened. Because I never paid a cent for any of my Chorus shares.

    Well before this (early 2000s?) I had set up Telecom to be the star of my portfolio, as Telecom became the roadway, over which the Dot Com craze and the internet would furnish my road to riches. I didn't really understand all the Dot Com businesses at the time. I did have enough nous though, to figure out that all the methods and assumptions that went into measuring the values of those new dot com businesses were crazy. So I didn't invest in any of them, joining the likes of Warren Buffett who was widely pilloried at being past his prime, not understanding the new way to do business, and labelled a fuddy duddy 'has been' investor. When the Dot Com bust came, all of those 'its different this time' 'once in a lifetime reset' investors were themselves reset by having their share portfolios and bank accounts reset to zero (or less).

    With the piggy backers gone, my road to riches dream that I had rolled out by investing in Telecom sputtered. We were back to the boring days of investing in land lines and mobiles and that dial up screech that was the internet of the day. The saving grace was that everyone did seem to need a telecommunications line of some kind. So even though my road to riches dream was shattered, I was getting a steady income from my Telecom shares.

    At that point we had the smartest woman in New Zealand running the show at Telecom, one Theresa Gattung. She had the government of the day so far twisted around her little finger that Telecom was going to milk those monopoly network profits AND be the leading retailer to boot, using customer confusion to boost profits. So great were those potential profits, that Telecom would end up being valued at around 25% of the value of the entire listed NZX. Except the leader of that government was one Helen Clark. And Theresa was about to find out that actually she was only the second smartest woman in the country. The unravelling of Chorus from what was then spoken of as 'New Telecom' had begun.

    This brings us to 2011. My spun off Chorus shares went into the bottom drawer, because I didn't know how to value the coming fibre broadband network that would result from the Chorus build out plan. Yet I did understand the potential treasure that any monopoly business might become. So better to hold on rather than throw away. Meanwhile my Telecom, soon to be Spark, shares slowly declined to flat-lined. I managed to pick up a few more Telecom/Spark shares in the ensuing decade, and had the patience to pick them up when they were out of favour, simply because they were out of fashion. This means, overall, I have no reason to complain about my Spark investment. Even during those Covid lock-downs, while other shares' dividends faltered, Spark was always there to pay the bills. So Spark and I have ended up in a 'love in the end' relationship rather than a 'love at first sight' one.

    Did I just use the four letter 'L' word then? What was that someone said about 'never falling in love with your shares'? With all my shares, love must be earned. And that means seeing how my chosen share in any industry stacks up against the opposition. Telstra, and British Telecom are the two 'like market' measuring sticks I am most familiar with. Over the years, I feel Spark has taught both of these companies a lesson, in how to transform what was a natural monopoly into a thriving 21st century competitive retail business.

    To end my retrospective on a boring note, I intend to hold my Spark shares for the foreseeable future. And the steadying influence my Spark shares had on my portfolio over a tumultuous 2022/2023 is a very good reason for doing that!

    I hope you enjoyed this little bedtime tale, and hope it helps you fizzle away into sweet dreams. Good night everyone (and big cats everywhere)!

    SNOOPY
    Last edited by Snoopy; 04-04-2023 at 10:08 PM.
    Watch out for the most persistent and dangerous version of Covid-19: B.S.24/7

  7. #7
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    One wonders .... why Joshuatree, 777 and a couple of others keep discussing the change of name on the old thread?

    Once it takes legal effect in April presumably it will be followed by a change on the NZX board from TEL to say SPA? Any other ideas what it might be called? Like trying to continue to discuss Ceylon (who?) after the owners changed it to Sri Lanka....

    Here's a link to the opinion of a marketing expert and discussion from the TVNZ breaking news website...

    http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/tele...expert-5845330
    Last edited by Major von Tempsky; 21-02-2014 at 06:26 PM. Reason: add ref

  8. #8
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    One wonders .... why Joshuatree, 777 and a couple of others keep discussing the change of name on the old thread?
    It may well be because the interim result didn't give much else to discuss or get enthusiastic about! Interesting to note, though, that telecoms - fixed line and mobile - still provided 80% of TEL's revenue in the period.

  9. #9
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    I think its a mistake, change for the sake of change. Telecom has huge brand image built up over many years, shame to lose it.
    Should have started Spark as a subsiduary company aimed at younger generation and ran it in conjunction with Telecom brand.
    Could have corned both ends of the market, old and new.
    Disc: No longer hold, and use Orcon.

  10. #10
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    Funny how Sharetrader mostly seems to attract comments from people who have allegedly just sold up and are therefore the expert on Spark....777, In4a$...
    Yet it has more shareholders than any other listed company and a growing share of the mobile market so something is out of whack.
    One would think that therefore there would be no further comments from 777 and In4a$, particularly as they don't read this thread... :-)

    I guess there is a large silent majority who don't feel the need to comment - just as nearly two thirds of NZers are satisfied the way the economy is going...eh

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