Smart Telecom... Would you invest???

stepbar

If you had a spare few quid lying about, would you risk it on Smart?

Sonnenblumen

stepbar wrote:

If you had a spare few quid lying about, would you risk it on Smart?

Ask Mr Murtagh, because I doubt if anyone else will.

antoinolachtnai

The company is carrying a lot of debt, and these guys will get paid before the shareholders. There could be some sort of restructure, and shareholders would lose out badly in that situation.

However, I think that Smart will get bought out for a surprising amount of money in the next year or two. I don't know if there is any good way for a retail investor to get involved though.

stepbar

I see Smart dropped 12.5% today... Just lookign through their accounts for 2005, I see the company is loaded with 90mil of debt, and has net assets of 48mil and as of last week has no cash left. Things dont look good for Smart. TBH if Smart were to go bust (i.e Brendan Murtagh stops signing the cheques) it would be a poor reflection of the state of telecomunications in Ireland. The lack of a regulator with real powers is killing Smart.

Once again the real winners are Eircon....

antoinolachtnai

Do you have any real reason for saying that 'things don't look good for smart'? True, there's no cash, and there's no business, but that was never the point anyway. Smart is all about the trade sale at the end.

stepbar

Add to that the fact that Smart has made significant losses in the last 4 years. Fair enough building a network is costly but they are significant. To answer my original question.... No, far too risky. I am not even sure that by concentrating on the 600,000 customer base that they say they have access to will save them. Damm the bit good it will be if Eircon are still throwing obstacles in the way. The only way out of all this is if Smart can get back the 3G licence that Comreg gave them. Smart might be a better prospect then.

Fair enough you say the trade sale is the ultimate goal but in fairness there would be a lot of other competitors that would be happy to see Smart liquidated. It would be an opportunity to pick up a few cheap assets. On another point I was disappointed to see Oisin Fanning resign. TBH he has left the company in a right state. Although health reasons were cited I have to question his motives....

Sonnenblumen

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Do you have any real reason for saying that 'things don't look good for smart'? True, there's no cash, and there's no business, but that was never the point anyway. Smart is all about the trade sale at the end.

Losing money hand over fist, small customer base, no liquidity, asset base is very limited, business model is doomed because I'd be amazed if Comreg give 3G licence to Smart, no finacial backbone. Decision will not be made until next year, by then Mr Murtagh will have closed his cheque book on this money burner.

Perhaps you can buy a few sales stations by then, little else of value.

If you're in smart, get out quick, if you're out stay out. Be smart and stay away would be MO.

antoinolachtnai

Well, it's not one for the retail investor. To answer the OP's question, I would not put money into ordinary smart shares. But access to local loops in a reasonable number of exchanges has to be worth something.

BendiBus

antoinolachtnai wrote:

But access to local loops in a reasonable number of exchanges has to be worth something.

Aboue 3.75p as of 14:00hrs, valuing the company at just over GBP£14million. Can't imagine the investors would see much return on that valuation.

SouperComputer

If you had a spare few quid lying about, would you risk it on Smart?

Not yet........


Smart plans to cut 100 jobs as part of rescue plan

/edit, that said, share price has gone up 13% in just under two hours!!!!

stepbar

http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/0915/smart.html

You have to wonder if that will be enough, me thinks that a greater emphasis on marketing will be needed now

rondjon

stepbar wrote:

http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/0915/smart.html

You have to wonder if that will be enough, me thinks that a greater emphasis on marketing will be needed now

Yes, but maybe a greater emphasis on better marketing might be required. Using "it's not smart, i'm just a wanker" magicians, sponsoring the weather and obscure sailing races and boats is hardly the way to be spending marketing budget. (Though the magician was a family connection or something).

I think there's enough in this company for it to make a little money at the low share price that it is now (and it's been lower), so someone could have made a 30% profit on the shares last week already.

antoinolachtnai

As a matter of interest, what would you have done with the marketing budget?

I don't know about making a quick buck. Is there really any market for these shares? I mean, do they trade much?

rondjon

antoinolachtnai wrote:

As a matter of interest, what would you have done with the marketing budget?

I don't know, I'm not a marketing person. I do know that as someone who should be one of their prime targets for their products, none of those campaigns have reached me. As an investor, I know about the campaigns only because I've read up on the company.

antoinolachtnai wrote:

I don't know about making a quick buck. Is there really any market for these shares? I mean, do they trade much?

Over 40m shares have traded hands in the past 7 days, an average of 5.5m shares per day. Average daily volume for the past year was about 2.2m shares.

Therefore the answer to both your questions there is Yes. There are obviously still buyers out there seeing the opportunity to make some money on Smart Telecom.

Sonnenblumen

rondjon wrote:

I don't know, I'm not a marketing person. I do know that as someone who should be one of their prime targets for their products, none of those campaigns have reached me. As an investor, I know about the campaigns only because I've read up on the company.



Over 40m shares have traded hands in the past 7 days, an average of 5.5m shares per day. Average daily volume for the past year was about 2.2m shares.

Therefore the answer to both your questions there is Yes. There are obviously still buyers out there seeing the opportunity to make some money on Smart Telecom.

I love you experts, slag off but no knowledge. Who says you're atarget customer? And cheap pricing doesn't get your 'prospective customer' attention what does? Could be you're not one of Smart's target customers?

Seems to me if anything you're probably an Eircom customer who knows SFA about marketing, but full of inertia!!

rondjon

Sonnenblumen wrote:

I love you experts, slag off but no knowledge. Who says you're atarget customer? And cheap pricing doesn't get your 'prospective customer' attention what does? Could be you're not one of Smart's target customers?

I say that I'm a prospective customer because I rang them up asking them about getting their broadband package into my house 3 months ago.

I'm a target customer because having just received my Leinster rugby season ticket, I see that it's also sponsored by Smart Telecom.

Double whammy, Sonnenblumen.

As for cheap pricing attracting target/prospective customers, that's all fine and well, assuming that the sales personnel actually return phone calls, actually answer questions from prospective customers, and do what sales and marketing people should be doing - following up on leads.

None of which Smart Telecom did when I approached them seeking to GIVE THEM MY MONEY!!!!!

Sonnenblumen wrote:

Seems to me if anything you're probably an Eircom customer who knows SFA about marketing, but full of inertia!!

Thanks for your concern Sonnenblumen. I already stated I know nothing about marketing, but thanks for reinforcing that point. I'm not a customer of Eircom, and at least I'm not full of ****!!

Sonnenblumen

rondjon wrote:

I say that I'm a prospective customer because I rang them up asking them about getting their broadband package into my house 3 months ago.

I'm a target customer because having just received my Leinster rugby season ticket, I see that it's also sponsored by Smart Telecom.

Double whammy, Sonnenblumen.

As for cheap pricing attracting target/prospective customers, that's all fine and well, assuming that the sales personnel actually return phone calls, actually answer questions from prospective customers, and do what sales and marketing people should be doing - following up on leads.

None of which Smart Telecom did when I approached them seeking to GIVE THEM MY MONEY!!!!!

The ultimate put down, gets rugby jersey but still Smart ignore you!!

Might be running out of cash, but at least they've got class. Quick run into Abrakebabra and get a big greasy burger !!

rondjon

Sonnenblumen wrote:

The ultimate put down, gets rugby jersey but still Smart ignore you!!

Might be running out of cash, but at least they've got class. Quick run into Abrakebabra and get a big greasy burger !!

Back to the OP, an investment in Smart Telecom last Friday, turned over this morning, would have netted about a 15% gain (not allowing for trading costs).

dunkamania

rondjon wrote:

Back to the OP, an investment in Smart Telecom last Friday, turned over this morning, would have netted about a 15% gain (not allowing for trading costs).

or you could go down to the nearest casino and put it all on red.

you would probably get as good an expected return

stepbar

Smart to cut more jobs as review concludes

http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/0922/smart.html

Wow, that means that Smart have now laid of 300 odd staff in the last month.

Sonnenblumen

Time to vacate the building?

AdMMM

If you've already got some money tied up with them, then I think your only realistic chance of seeing any return would lie with a potential takeover. A fairly substancial ADSL2+ network is a lot in Irish telecommunications terms and would be very attractive to any foreign multinational looking to enter the Irish market.

wyndham

Not looking too good tonight. Of course people who have their bband/line with them can't read this.

boomer_ie

wyndham wrote:

Not looking too good tonight. Of course people who have their bband/line with them can't read this.

I have my houseline with them but broadband with digiweb, wonder how long tha t will last, Smart also owe me money for work done for them so its not looking good....