BSkyB Share Discussion Threads

[pierre oreilly] 20/2/2014 09:26

Here's a post from the BT board which is highly relevant to Sky ...

One thing's for sure DMF, there's no reason for Sky presenters to get worked up about getting amongst the fans in any championship league matches now is there.

I doubt they'll even have to worry about about any premiership matches in a few months too.

Sky sports presenters will soon only have to worry about getting in and dirty with those tiddlewink fans.

Any takers? Tiddlewinks for £70pm, or the most crowd pulling football for 'free' (so the major tv advertising campaign sayas? I'm sure when those Sky contracts come up for renewal, many sky subscribers will be asking the same thing. And these days, the regulator has told Sky not to simply bin cancellation requests, so people can actually migrate these days.

[albany30] 19/2/2014 21:18

Rodney polluting the board of yet another share he doesn't hold and has never had the knackers to buy with the sort of financial wisdom found in primary school playgrounds - yep, sounds like Rodney!For those of us lucky to hold both VOD and BSY, there is a very lucrative short term future in store.BSY have been moving non-stop since BT acquired the Champs Lge at over 3 times market value. Guarantee there is a lot more going on behind the scenes regarding potential mergers and further acquisitions.950 is certainly achievable in the shirt term even without another major RNS. Onwards and upwards!

[dmf] 19/2/2014 20:22

Rodney I Suggest you go short BT

You know it makes sense !

You seemed a bit desperate on the VOD thread recently hoping VOD would have an initiative with BT - Very unlikely, the venture will be with BSY

[harvester] 19/2/2014 10:30

Pierre: We do have our differences of opinion but that is a good thing since it would be a boring discussions just to agree with one another .
It doesn't matter who wins the argument as long as the correct answer is found .
As far as share pricing is concerned, you appear to give more weight to the fundamentals of PE than I do . After all the published figures can be manipulated by all sorts of accounting tricks, are historic while the market looks forward and market opinion on what is an attractive PE ratio keeps changing as market sentiment changes . Right now shareholders will care little if the rise is due to the buy-back or fundamentals and the rise will bring in more momentum traders.
Having said that , you have done really well with your long-term BT investment and your short-term assessment of BT price moves around the 400 mark has also been better than mine. Just don't get sentimentally attached to this or
any share .
I have managed to compensate this morning by by buying back in BT at a heavily discounted price using my 380 call option proceeds to do so .

[pierre oreilly] 19/2/2014 10:03

Harv,

Correct???


Yes, that's exactly what I said, which is exactly what the rns's say. Each time theres a buyback in the market (and the shares canceled) there's a corresponding sale from Fox )Murdoch's vehicle) such that fox maintains the same percentage of shares, therefore the same influnce. Brilliant, dumpoing shares while no dilution of influence. We are saying exaclty the same thing (which also the RNSs tell us) - don't get confused by any imbecile stating your posts are spot on and mine are cack when they say the same.

Regarding the share price when the price support stops. Yes, the number of shares in issue diminishes, so there's a p/e enhancement, so, all other things being equal, the price when the support stops, will drop to the previous valuation - i.e. the same p/e, which will be at a slightly higher price due to less shares in issue. The key thing is the magnitude of the p/e change due to the lowered number of shares, and to see that, you have to do a simple quantitative analysis (i.e. put the numbers in). The other key thing is to realise the mechanics of buying say £300ks worth of shares drives the price up - as do any other buys. The price the buys drive the price up to is higher than the price justified by the p/e on the lower number of shares, hence, when support stops, the price returns to the p/e appropriate for the business prospects. Try putting numbers in - nothing like quantitative analysis for predicting these mechanical/technical adjustments. You'll soon see how tiny the p/e enhancement is due to the lower number of shares. (A simple quantitative analysis is how I easly predicted the recent 3%ish rise over the last couple of days for BT, which equally applied to Sky, if you remember me saying that).

[albany30] 19/2/2014 02:07

And here's a piece for Rodney O'Troll (aka Pierre O'Reilly) the spamming troll - be very careful engaging with this troll and his flatulent spamming of the BSY board, a share he boasts about not owning yet which he constantly makes pitiful attempts to deramp (witness the childlike lies he's posting about Murdoch selling his stock for example). Here's some background on the wee lamb;http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/online-trolls-are-psychopaths-and-sadists-psychologists-claim-9134396.html

[albany30] 19/2/2014 01:50

Harvester - you have VOD too don't you? Same here, looking forward to the dividend . . . you got any plans for reinvestment of yours?Everything I've watched recently has been rising (from AGL to BDEV to BT)!Liked HYC which theoretically looks even more appealing now post crash. Quantitative easing from VOD money should mean now is the time to start picking, anyway.

[harvester] 18/2/2014 22:49

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[harvester] 18/2/2014 22:49

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[harvester] 18/2/2014 22:48

Pierre:
We can certainly agree that Murdoch is a wily old fox who will shrewdly manipulate things to his advantage . That's why it would be very good news if the company could extract itself away from his influence but if and how that could be done is another thing and may just be wishful thinking .
Regarding buybacks:
Let's just for simplicity of arithmetic assume that the company has 10K shares in total of which Fox hold 4K giving them a 40% voting share.

Total BSY shares Buyback FOX Sale Other foxshares % fox holding
Start 10K 0 0 0 4K 40%
(2) 9K 1K 0.4K 0.6K 3.6K 40%
(3) 8K 1K 0.4K 0.6K 3.2K 40%
and so on .
Hence Fox can raise cash while maintaining their voting% but other shareholders also get the chance to offload .

Correct???
Undoubtedly the buyback puts upward pressure on the share price and is costing the company more and more as the share price increases .
I don't quite follow your argument that the share price drifts back to the original when buyback stops. After all, at the end of the buyback program their will be fewer shares in circulation and much reduced free float of shares .

Technical arguments apart , this has been a great day for BSY and BT shareholders while I executed my little sales too early yesterday before this sudden rise .
Not quite sure how that relates to the VOD effect since index trackers would need to adjust all their FTSE positions .

[pierre oreilly] 18/2/2014 21:50

Phil - I think that depends on whether or not Sky run out of cash to keep up their almost daily share buybacks. I expect Murdoch will pressure for the buybacks to continue, since he very elegantly sells shares via his vehicle, each time there's a buyback - so he's dumping due to previous agreements at an inflated price.

The last couple of days rise is simply a technical rise from the vodphone corporate action, where many institutions have to rebase their holdings to allow for vod's soon to be halved market cap. A freebie 3%ish mechanical rise for everyone.

Where do you think the price would be had no price supporting buybacks (both in the market and from Murdoch's vehicle directly) taken place over the last copuple of months? Because that's where it's heading when the buybacks eventually stop imv, when once again the price will be driven by the (poor) business prospects rather than the hundreds of millions of quid spent on buying their own shares, being the current driver.

[albany30] 18/2/2014 17:36

Going up, alright - nice to see the entire ftse start to move. 950 the target for now, pending more merger / takeover chat!Now Pierre has me on filter, I can relay the reason for his absence on these boards last week - he's Dave Lee Travis.Anyway, let us all hope for a Rodney O'Reilly free few months (although BSY's share price surge has been in sync with his bilge postings).

[philo124] 18/2/2014 16:45

950p on now.

[pierre oreilly] 18/2/2014 15:54

Albany, seriously mate, you are showing signs of mental illness, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Please go and see your GP.

I'll filter your posts from now on so I'm certain I'm not contributing to your problems by responding.

[albany30] 18/2/2014 12:44

Ah, I think Rodney, in his pitiful need to spout unedited nonsense on here has just shot himself in the foot.The specific claim that Rupert Murdoch is personally lowering his shares in BSY (and thus his family's by 'almost daily' (number of buy backs listed on the RNS list) buy backs is a very serious accusation to make given the nature of these boards.Wonder what BSY will make of such unproven accusations being posted on a public share trading forum? You see, I don't - and I will hazard informed posters on here - don't believe for one minute that this is happening.It highlights Rodders either as a clueless, simple little man begging for interaction or, given the size of his spamming posts, a full time troll (check number of daily posts).Either way, would be good to get BSY's view of Rodney's accusations and see what advfn make of them too.Mange tout Rodders!

[albany30] 18/2/2014 12:19

Quick summary of little Rodney's most recent foray onto BSY's board (why the obsession, Rodders??);Blah blah fatal misunderstanding of buy backs blah blah incoherent rendering of BSY strategy blah blah pompous, tedious opinions of own self worth blah blah comically deluded over valuation of own comments on all matters financial blah blah primary school spelling of Murdoch as MurdockThere, now the filter can be applied! I strongly now suspect you are one of advfn's sad little trolls (my own suspicion, given your apparent lack of a job, is you are an alias of N3tleyLucas given the epic scale of your trolling here).I'll have advfn have a look but in the meantime, try and keep the mind numbingly boring spamming to, say, 50 words?There's a good troll.

[harvester] 18/2/2014 10:30

Pierre: food for thought and thanks for comments.
Will respond but too busy right now to chat during the day.

[pierre oreilly] 18/2/2014 09:34

Regarding point 4 and the divis - the yield is calculated on the current price, and if the price has increased massively (as is the case with BT), the the yield inevitably drops. The return for my on my buying price is around 14% pa, and will no doubt rise further when the next BT divi increase is announced (an excellent example of why ltbh is a fantastic strategy when you pick the right company). My preference is for a rising share price with the automatic drop in yield while my annual return increases to very high levels (as well as the capital value increasing significantly too).

There are plenty of companies with very high yields caused by share price drops, which may or may not be a good entry point, but certainly for existing holders the high yield isn't a good thing (since their capital has been eroded).

[pierre oreilly] 18/2/2014 09:16

Harv - regard point 3 - I can assure you I am perfectly correct in what I stated, it's all there in the daily RNSs, Murdoch, via his ownership vehicle in bsy, is selling in quantity most days.

I didn't suggest he was lowering his percentage of voting rights - in fact the RNSs tell us he is keeping exactly the same percentage voting rights - his shareholding is lowered in exactly the same percentage way as the daily and persistent price support buybacks Sky is spending hundreds of millions on (quite surprising given the much higher cash needs due to the rapidly increasing content prices they'll have to pay to stay in the game. (Has anyone at all here done the simply analysis to see how sky's available cash is diminishing due to supporting the share price?)

the structure under which Murdoch is dumping his bsy shares almost daily and in quantity really is a brilliant piece of business acumen (as you would expect from Murdoch - whatever else can be said, he has a brilliant business brain). He's dumping millions of shares, raising lots of cash, and keeping the same influential hold on sky and - to boot - has the excellent excuse for those sales that he has no option to sell due to past agreements. While that's true, it is the acumen and business insight to set up those agreements in the first place - really a touch of genius for those who can see it.

In all my years of investing, I have never beofre seen company buybacks on such a scale. Almost daily for months. The price support works fine until the price support and buybacks end, when the price will return roughly to the pre-buyback p/e, in the absence of any other factors. Contrary to those who rely on Wiki for their information on the effect of price support buybacks, the change in p/e due to the lower number of shares in issue is absolutely tiny (can anyone else also work it out for sky's buybacks?) and yet the price is boosted significantly by the mechanics of the buybacks through the market driving the p/e to a level not justified by the business - hence the inevitable price drop when the price support mechanism is reduced or ceased altogether, and the p/e returns to a level the business justifies. Buybacks on this scale simply give an exit point for shareholders at a much higher price than would otherwise be the case for a limited time.

[albany30] 18/2/2014 01:13

Harvester - excellent detail and another lesson for Rodney to hopefully re-read in his quest for the faintest grasp of share trading.Re BTs buyback, I thought BT had announced they were doing £300m of buy backs per year for two years?

[harvester] 17/2/2014 22:55

Pierre :
(1) Yes, BT has more than twice the market cap of BSY . Share buyback impact should be viewed against that .
(2) Yes, BSY share buy-back program appears larger than BT's .
BSY announced buyback over one year of 238mill shares or £500mill to be viewed against total of 1.575bn shares . BT announced share buyback of 24 million shares in February/March 2014 to be viewed against total of 7.9 bn shares approx . Not strictly comparable since not yet known what buy-backs BT will run for the rest of the year .
(3) I wish you were right on your last point of Murdoch offloading. Many BSY shareholders would welcome that and it would enhance the reputation and attractions of BSY . However, under the BSY RNS dated 22.11.13 Fox Inc will deliver some shares for the buy-back but Fox will maintain its % of shareholding so that there is no change of voting rights . So they are not yet surrendering or reducing control.
4) BT shareholders have been richly rewarded this last year but BSY shareholders
have also had a good run with divi of 3.34 better than BT's 2.35 and rising share value, admittedly enhanced by the buy-back program
.
Todays appeal Court ruling appears to be a small points victory for BT but I wonder if that could also back-fire as BT acquires more sporting rights which clearly they are trying to achieve .

[pierre oreilly] 17/2/2014 21:12

Albany, regarding your posts ion the BT thread ...

Are you trying to imply the absolutely tiny share buyback by BT is somehow similar to Sky's price support buybacks?

Honestly, can't you see the difference in the magnitude of the buybacks? That BT's are tiny (enough to satisfy exercised employee share options over the period) and even tinier when compared to BT's market cap, and Sky's are extremely large, almost daily and relentless in order to support the share price? Can't even you see that? And that Sky's large price support buybacks are from a much smaller market cap so proportionally larger still? And that on each buyback Murdock offloads many more of his Sky shares? I'm afraid these are simply facts - BT holders have to accept any facts about BT, and Sky shareholders have to accept any facts about their company too. Fortunately, there's a market where any shares without attractive characteristics can be sold very quickly, so no point in anyone holding any duff shares.