During the week, I made the brash claim that Swiftel is “a steal at these levels”. Rightly, stavlin called me to account, asking “compared to what?”
Well, I’d argue there is a ‘within’ and a ‘between’ answer to that question – SWT is undervalued in my view both in terms of how it stacks up as a story in its own right, AND in terms of relative value compared to other junior telcos.
I’ve already made clear in several posts why I think the INTERNAL investment logic of the SWT story has taken a huge leap forward with the announcement of its collaboration with the privately-owned People Telecom Ltd during the week.
EXTERNAL comparisons, on the other hand, are more fraught – particularly here where everyone has his or her own barrow to push. One rough guide that I’ve always found useful, however, is comparative market capitalization. Without comment, then, I present a list of what I think are most of the remaining (still listed) junior telcos, together with their market caps as of close of trade on Friday(1):
(1) Some companies you might have expected to be included – eg, Iinet – are excluded because their Company Listings are given as “Information & Technology/Sofware Services” rather than “Telecommunications Services”. Iinet’s market cap, by the way, is 83.5m!
