I personally think it will be unlikely that HTA will not have some sort of sharing deal within the next 12 months. So this will have to be very positive for the share price - by how much I don't know. HTA has a 3 billion investment from which it has to try and scrape back some value - Has Hutchison announced any other network sharing deal in any other country? I haven't checked, but I cannot recall one.
What would this mean for the "3" brand in a global sense and the notion that it was going to go it alone on 3G? Then again, if you asked me 12 months ago, I would have said back then that HTA would have had a deal in place in OZ by now. On the positive side for HTA they are getting solid growth in customer numbers, but they are paying quite a bit to get them. In this sense HTA may be committing the cardinal mistake of going after market share at the expense of profitability.
Having said that the large nework they have established requires a large critical mass of customers, otherwise it is not viable. All in all it's a sh*t sandwich for HTA - they have to keep on spending to keep the network viable - ergo the $300 mill market cap. Still, from the point of view of inspecting the scraps, it's damn cheap at the current price, with upside of a significant factor if a deal is announced.
What will Telstra do?.......It's a big industry with big egos, and a sensible aproach to the investment decision seems often to take a back seat in all the carriers at various times.........
This inabilty to get a firm grip on a likely outcome on 3G is the only thing holding back HTA from being a screaming buy at the current price.
HTA Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
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