Share price, page-14

One NZ actually partnered with Starlink / SpaceX mid last year for some services, Telstra on this side of the fence has also been partnered with them for a while now as well. While I agree telcos globally are under significant threat from Starlink, I think embracing or partnering is the best option they have at this point. The partnered services mostly caters for existing customers in regional or remote areas, using Starlink's satellites for additional coverage in dark spots.

The question is how competitive can Starlink's pricing get vs. speeds and also whether or not governments step in and regulate the space to assist domestic telcos. I think it's also worth thinking about Starlink's impact on customer / retail facing telcos vs. business / government facing telcos - I dare say longer term Starlink will eat away retail facing telcos but find it hard to break into business / government facing telcos who own hard fiber assets, subsea cables, infrastrcuture assets for more sensitive or critical services such as data centres, servers, continental links etc.


I think the biggest dampener on the share price as others have pointed out are based around the US election and policy change currently underway - it's impact on Longroad Energy's valuations could likely take a hit, along with earnings; which has the potential to whack Infratil as a whole since it was last valued around $2B NZD for Infratil's share. The Inflation Reduction Act would have benefited Longroad and any alteration to that Act will affect Longroad's current assets valuations, earning capacity, and future planning of capital expenditure or build out, it could also affect Longroad's ability to gain external funding outside of Infratil within the US. While Galileo, Gurin & Mint are exposed to the same renewables space they are less likely to take a hit due to their location globally, however things could change if more and more countries governments start following suit and start moving away from green energy commitments.

Below taken from FY24 results presenetation on the Longroad Energy slides - showing Infratil's thoughts on pros and cons associated with the IRA, policy and government in the US.