Seeking Alpha: America Movil Going Global In A Search For Value

The last year has been a challenging one for America Movil (AMX). While profits are improving in the Brazilian operations, a softer Mexican economy impacted results as regulators increasingly look to clip America Movil's wings. A recent decision to assume operating control of Telekom Austria (OTCPK:TKAGY) is not at all surprising, but the company has yet to clearly outline the value proposition for expansion into Europe as opposed to other Latin American markets. All told, America Movil is likely undervalued today on the basis of is long-term cash flow generation potential, but the company will likely have to show that it can deal with the new regulatory system in Mexico and extract value from Telekom before the Street gives it the full benefit of the doubt.

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America Movil Going Global In A Search For Value

Seeking Alpha: Millicom Needs To Improve Margins To Unlock Value

The glory days of wireless service growth appear to be over. Most markets have at least three competing companies, and even those few remaining virgin markets have been demanding expensive concessions from operators. In the case of Millicom (OTCPK:MIICF), then, the question is whether or not the company can use better margins as a driver of shareholder value. Though the company has the opportunity to grow its cable and multi-play services in Latin America and benefit from underpenetration in Africa, management will likely find it easier to deliver incremental growth through cost containment.

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Millicom Needs To Improve Margins To Unlock Value

Investopedia: America Movil Sees An Uptick, But Strategy Still Uncertain

Investors in large Latin American mobile phone service provider America Movil (NYSE:AMX) have gotten a respite lately from the worries about serious changes to the regulatory environment in Mexico. A decent earnings report showed that there's still some room for performance, while a transaction in Europe highlighted the potential value of at least one of its strategic investments. All told, though, this is a company still facing some serious challenges in its business, and one where investors still aren't completely confident in management's long-term ambitions.

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Investopedia: AT&T Makes One Small Step For Leap

Maybe AT&T (NYSE:T) was insurmountably frustrated in its rumored attempt to buy all or part of Telefonica (NYSE:TEF), or maybe there never was any substance to that rumor. In any case, in lieu of the $150 billion or so that Telefonica would have cost, AT&T's surprising announcement Friday night that it was acquiring Leap Wireless (Nasdaq:LEAP) for $4 billion seems like a much smaller step.

This is a curious deal on multiple fronts. Leap is not a particularly strong company, and it is not as thought AT&T is badly hurting for spectrum. Instead, this may be a case of AT&T flexing its financial muscles to make life harder on its competition (especially T-Mobile (Nasdaq:TMUS) and Sprint (NYSE:S)) and deny this asset to other potential bidders.

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Investopedia: France Telecom Under Pressure From Both Sides

It certainly fits a lot of American stereotypes about France to see the incumbent telecom operator (and leading wireless provider) France Telecom (NYSE: FTE) struggling with operating efficiencies and high employee costs. What may not be stereotypical, but is nevertheless true, is that brutal free capitalist-style competition is likewise putting a lot of pressure on the company's revenue generation in its home territory. Although arguably too cheap by several metrics, France Telecom has a worrisome capital and expense structure and relatively uninspiring growth potential.

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http://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/062413/france-telecom-under-pressure-both-sides-fte-tef-vod-t.aspx

Investopedia: Does AT&T Have Global Ambitions?

Monday is often the day for deals and rumors, and a doozy in the telecom market quickly made the rounds. Depending upon which reports you believe, AT&T (NYSE:T) either made a bid for Telefonica (NYSE:TEF) and was rebuffed by the Spanish government, or no such approach was ever made. In either case, it is not altogether surprising that AT&T would be entertaining global ambitions, and Telefonica is certainly a business that could be worth quite a bit more if cleaned up and improved. By the same token, this is not the only potential asset that could appeal to AT&T.

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Investopedia: Increasing Regulatory Burdens Depressing America Movil's Growth

America Movil (NYSE:AMX) has historically been a pretty popular one-stop-shop pick for investors looking for broad exposure to Latin American consumer demand. While the markets have long since evolved beyond a point where investors had few emerging market choices beyond banks, telecom providers, and utilities America Movil still serves a growing region with an increasing focus on high-value bundled services. Worries about regulatory burdens have pushed these shares into value territory, but investors need to appreciate that the company is past the point where underlying market growth can patch over any and all problems.

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Seeking Alpha: The Forecast For Synchronoss Looks Cloudy, With A Chance Of Outperformance

A certain segment of the tech investor community may loathe buzzwords like "cloud," but the reality is that it's a fixture of the landscape for now and the core of many public company business models. One such company is Synchronoss Technologies (SNCR), which has created a hosted service to handle mobile phone activations and transactions, as well as a white label personal cloud offering for mobile customers.

While significant future growth in the company's activation business is going to hinge on signing up additional Tier 1 service providers, the growth potential in customer cloud services is hardly trivial. I think investors would do well to ask if white label cloud services are destined to become a commodity, but these shares could still hold upside from today's level.

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The Forecast For Synchronoss Looks Cloudy, With A Chance Of Outperformance

Seeking Alpha: Is America Movil Still A LatAm Growth Story?

Like people, companies change as they grow older. America Movil (AMX) was once a premier Latin American growth stock at a time when retail investors had few good options for investing in that region. Since then, both the company and its markets have matured, and investors now have numerous other options for investing in emerging markets. Given the company's maturing model and its ventures into Europe, is America Movil still a growth stock and is it still worth owning?

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Is America Movil Still A LatAm Growth Story?

Investopedia: Telefonica Still Has To Muddle Through The Mess In Spain

The ongoing slow-motion train wreck that is Spain has dragged down plenty of otherwise companies, and Telefonica (NYSE:TEF) definitely belongs on the list. Although Telefonica's health isn't tied to the solvency of Spain as much as other major banks such as Santander (NYSE:SAN) or BBVA (NYSE:BBVA), the state of the economy there still does make a big difference. With hefty debt and a global decline in the returns of wireless as an industry, Telefonica has its challenges. Although the company's debt load is a roadblock to significant value for the shares today, I wouldn't completely count out this company (or its shares).

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Investopedia: Vivendi Needs Cooperation To Turn Around

There's only so much that any company can do on its own, particularly when a major part of its restructuring plans revolve around selling assets at fair prices. But that is the situation facing Vivendi (OTC:VIVEF) today; while there is indeed ample capacity for the company to improve internal operations and returns, it seems like a lot of value realization rests on finding buyers for various parts of the business. Although Vivendi does appear to be worth meaningfully more than today's market value, investors should underestimate the time and work it may take for that value to come to fruition.

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Investopedia: France Telecom - The Thrill Is Gone

Continuing a theme that not all great-looking dividends are suitable for income-oriented investors, France Telecom (NYSE:FTE) is having serious struggles in the market these days. Price-based competition is still a very real threat to France Telecom in Europe, while Africa is simply too small relative to Western Europe to make a substantial difference. That said, the lousy market performance of this stock seems to have washed out a lot of pessimism.

Dreary Results, as Expected  
Little was expected of France Telecom for end-of-year results, and that's pretty much what the company offered. Fourth quarter revenues dropped about 3%, with a 4% drop in revenue from France (which is about 50% of the total). There weren't any real surprises in the "why" - France Telecom is under considerable pressure on price and customer retention. To that point, churn rose again - up 70 basis points from the third quarter and almost three points from the year-ago period.

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http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2012/France-Telecom--The-Thrill-Is-Gone-FTE-VOD-TEF-DTEGY.PK0306.aspx

Seeking Alpha: Has The Tide Finally Turned For Turkcell

The stock market performance of Turkey's largest mobile phone operator (and arguably the best-known Turkish company to U.S. investors) Turkcell (TKC) has never been what anybody would call stable, but the last four years have been rough indeed. Although Turkcell looks promisingly cheap by many metrics, investors may not find as much value here as they hope.

Has The Bleeding Stopped?
The biggest problem for Turkcell has been competition; regulators in Turkey have wanted more competition in mobile phone services and have imposed mobile termination rate and interconnect fee cuts as a means of achieving that. Something similar has happened to America Movil (AMX) recently and Turkcell doesn't have the luxury of strong growth outside of Turkey to offset the damage. As if that weren't enough, rivals Vodafone (VOD) and Avea (mostly owned by Turk Telecom) have sought to build share by aggressive under-cutting Turkcell on pricing.

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Has The Tide Finally Turned For Turkcell?

Seeking Alpha: America Movil - "Mature" Doesn't Mean Dead

Although the suppliers of consumer essentials like wireless phone service are supposed to be the safer, less-volatile way to play emerging markets, that wasn't the case in 2011. To name just one example, Latin American giant America Movil (NYSE: AMX) basically fared just as bad as the broader Mexican and LatAm stock markets. While the America Movil story is no longer about pioneering the expansion of wireless service south of the U.S. border, the fact remains that value remains in one of the best-run emerging market corporations.

Trying To Surf Changing Tides In Mexico
America Movil started off as a spin-off of Mexico's fixed-line operator Telmex and Mexico is still a crucial market for the company. More than one-third of the company's revenue comes from here and more than half of corporate EBITDA, due in large part to its approximately 70% share of the wireless market.

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America Movil - 'Mature' Doesn't Mean Dead

Investopedia: American Tower Still Great, And Still Expensive

Communications tower owner American Tower (NYSE:AMT) knows well what many landlords have long realized; it is a great business to own a valuable asset that your customers can't build for themselves, but must have in order to stay in business. Better still, not only is there still growth potential in the U.S., from higher occupancy, more towers and higher prices, but even greater potential overseas.

A Fairly Good Third Quarter  
There are no complaints with the top line numbers that American Tower reported. Revenue rose almost 23% to $630 million, surpassing the average analyst estimate and matching the high end of the range. While overseas growth was eye-popping at 79% year-on-year, domestic growth of 9% is pretty good, in its own right, considering how mature the U.S. mobile phone market is.

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http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2011/American-Tower-Still-Great-And-Still-Expensive-AMT-VOD-SBAC-VZ-T-S-CCI-TEF-FTE-CHL1102.aspx

Investopedia: Can Sprint Nextel Unlock Value?

By most reasonable standards and projections, Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) is too cheap. But aside from a bounce out of late 2008, this has been a terrible stock to own for many years, and the glory days when Sprint stock carried a "6" or "7" handle seem long ago indeed. When terrible stock performance and apparent value are paired together, it's often a sign that Wall Street has minimal confidence in management. Although Sprint Nextel management has earned the doubt of any benefit, the company may nonetheless not be getting nearly enough credit for what it may be able to do.


A Bizarre Analyst Meeting
Sprint Nextel recently hosted an analyst meeting, and while these are normally intended to add clarity to a story and allow management to explain its vision, it seems like most investors walked away with a lot of lingering doubts.

It certainly did not help matters that the meeting got testy when analysts really ratcheted up the questions in response to Sprint's announcement that it would be launching its own 4G network, leaving Clearwire (Nasdaq:CLWR) out of it, stopping the sale of Clearwire-compatible devices by the end of 2012.



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Investopedia: Peru's Big Decision

Elections matter in almost every economy, but maybe even more so in Latin America. Several once-promising growth stories have been all but erased in the wake of elections that brought in who promised equality, but delivered little more than shared misery and more corruption. Venezuela is perhaps the best recent example, though there are others. Right now, investors are fretting over what this weekend's election in Peru may hold for the country, its citizens and investors. 


More of the Same or a Turn to the Left?
The June 5 election in Peru has come down to a very close contest between Keiko Fujimori and Ollanta Humala. Ms. Fujimori's platform basically represents a "more of the same" continuation of existing policies; policies that have brought a lot of growth to Peru and considerably more economic stability.

Ollanta Humala is more of an unknown quality. A former military officer, Humala fought against Peru's Shining Path (a Maoist insurgency), but also led an unsuccessful military revolt against the government of Alberto Fujimori - Keiko's father and a former President of Peru now in jail for a host of crimes committed during his administration.


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http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2011/Perus-Big-Decision-SCCO-BAP-BVN-BBVA-TEF-BNS-EPU0603.aspx

Investopedia: The Return Of The Norsemen?

Like its fellow Nordic tech brother Nokia (NYSE:NOK), Ericsson (Nasdaq:ERIC) can only look back fondly on the days when it was a favorite of the tech crowd. Not only did the excessive build-out of the late '90s poison the well, but Ericsson has had to deal with the rise of Chinese competitors like Huawei and aggressive marketing and pricing moves from rivals like Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU) just trying to stay in business.


A Surprisingly Strong First Quarter
Even though Ericsson is not a widely loved stock in the analyst community, the business has been staging a comeback, and the first quarter was surprisingly strong. Revenue rose 17% as reported, and although this was a 16% sequential decline, it was better than analysts had expected. It is also worth noting that on a constant-currency basis year-over-year growth was actually on the order of 25% - a pretty respectable quarter by any standards.


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Investopedia: AT&T Gives Deutsche Telekom Its Out

German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom (OTC:DTEGY) has been trying for years to figure out a strategy for its U.S. business T-Mobile. That dilemma may be at an end now, as the company has agreed to sell T-Mobile to American rival AT&T (NYSE:T) in a $39 billion deal that combines cash and stock. 

Terms of the Deal
In a surprising move, AT&T announced that the two companies had reached an agreement whereby AT&T will pay $25 billion in cash and $14 billion in stock for Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile subsidiary, the #4 player in the U.S. wireless space with roughly 34 million total subscribers. Interestingly, AT&T will not be taking on any of the debt associated with T-Mobile.

At the stated price, AT&T is paying about 7x T-Mobile's trailing EBITDA - a premium to Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) and Clearwire (Nasdaq:CLWR) (which has negative EBITDA), but in line with MetroPCS (NYSE:PCS) and Leap Wireless (Nasdaq:LEAP). (For related reading, see A Clear Look At EBITDA,)

The Logic of the Deal
It will probably take a year or more for this deal to close, but if it does AT&T will become the #1 wireless provider in the United States. Not only are those subs valuable to AT&T, but the deal helps addressed some of the company's spectrum needs as well. The deal will also give AT&T certain operating synergies, not only be eliminating duplicate functions and personnel, but also giving the company greater bargaining power with vendors.



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