changegonnacome

True! but it somewhat functions as a better than/substitute for cash position…….think Buffet with Verizon……but with two way crappier names subbing for both of them ? I just dont see it getting much cheaper from here basically. The worst outcome is the move sideways continues for a while more but obviously I dont think that. The story is becoming way less complex/convoluted over time........plus it has a nice 'free' inflation hedge element.......hard infrastructure type assets with pricing power underpinning the HoldCo business.........with gobs of debt sitting at the OpCo levels that I'd be happy to see inflated away if inflation ever gets going.

Yeah the catalyst is that most hated of 'catalysts" a slow and grinding narrative change to a highly stable/slightly growing FCF story as synergies are realized (but not without significant costs to capture in the short term) & LBTYA is allowed to buyback ~10-15% of the company a year with the market just shrugging its shoulders............the good news is broadly LBTYA under promises on synergies and over delivers with a timeline usually earlier than expected. What they are undertaking in the UK and Switzerland has been played out in Holland & Belgium before. I expect churn to go down, NPS to go up & ARPU to rise with a corresponding uptick in FCF. They do have a FMC playbook and it should be fairly finally tuned at this stage. The reality in some ways for a patient holder is you hope nobody gives a shit about Liberty Global for the next few years and it aggressively repurchases shares at these levels.........and then one day you/the market wakes up and UK/Switzerland FMC project is 'done', subsidiary companies are listed or a being listed....LBTYA Hold Co. is stably collecting $2bn a year in cash with all the debt sitting at the OpCo level and the market re-prices it. In an expensive market I'm a happy holder here knowing that I dont really see much downside at all, while my ownership is tax efficiently rising each year on stable/slightly growing business that sells an essential service & I do ultimately have faith that Malone/Liberty will do deals that make sense to create value within the LBTYA envelope.

Interesting - writer or buyer? and at what strike. Its quite amazing what he’s doing there - effectively has turned his company into a defacto BTC etf/proxy

Sorry should have been clearer - 100 euro a month for Broadband, Cable TV bundle, Landline & Mobile phone……..triple play or quad pay bundle…fixed mobile convergence in action!….this is basically 80% of my friends and family that are on footprint with Virgin Media in the UK and Ireland……….Liberty’s 1 gig broadband product is already rolled out on most of the footprint in UK/Ireland, same with the Netherlands & UPC in Switzerland along with Telenet…….its pretty impressive and places LBYTA as the clear speed winner at scale vs. incumbent telcos who are delivering DSL over legacy copper or rolling out expensive Fibre

Hi Nelg - Thanks for the reports - if you could put your hand on Bank of America’s Anaylst report that would be great as it also has a very bullish outlook with a street high PT I believe something like $56 This is a relatively big position for me built post-COVID at prices around ~$17 - ~$21……….I have an affinity with the business so am somewhat biased but hopefully not blinkered…………household family members in Europe have been paying the various companies that own the cable coming into my boyhood home c.100 euro a month for as long as I can remember and the owners of that house will in my estimation continue to pay that amount for as long it stands. Virgin Media UK/Ireland, on its footprint, has currently the clear speed advantage and is the premuim provider for what is, IMO now more than ever, an essential service. I might have argued pre-pandemic that it was becoming completely commoditized but now I think people will pay up for the premuim provider given data connectivity’s importance in work/entertainment When I bought at $17 it was bargain…..now its back to somewhat pre-COVID levels but no higher really than when they tendered for a bunch of shares at $27, I’m going to say in 2018 post their German sale and when they had serious gobs of cash to get rid off. Its been a go nowhere stock in many ways for a certain vintage holders and so lots of fatigue in the stock….it was optically cheap during that period of time too…..however there were genuine concerns then around (1) irrational forced competition in European markets where LBTYA operates (2) the future viability of DOCSIS in a fiber world and (3) emergent idea that 5G was going to destroy fixed connectivity providers. To my mind those three issues have been put to bed On (1) European regulators in the markets where LBTYA operates I think have realized they went too far with wholesaling/blocking mergers etc.….everyone wants infrastructure built out for the digital age and you cant get that done by the sovereign (because of debts levels) and you cant get it done by companies earning less than their cost of capital. Regulators have in the UK/Netherlands/Belgium & Switzerland taken their foots ever so slightly off the necks of connectivity providers with the kickback being they invest in 5G/Fibre etc. Rational competition is breaking out in those markets. On (2) DOCSIS has proven to be way more robust platform for increasing speed and there exists a pathway to 10gb/s down for the technology….it can be argued now that with 1gb/s almost done on footprint by LBTYA that your really talking about speed beyond that which wont really matter to customers. A 1 gig down line is going to run numerous 4K streams while downloading the latest Call of Duty in no time at all. The Fibre advantage going on footprint with LBTYKA is not really an issue anymore 1 gig is 1gig whether devliered over HDFC or Fibre the consumer doesn’t care and brand/track record matters here more than ever. Virgin/LBTYA have been investing in their brands for years before the arrival of alt nets. On (3) the hyperbole about what 5G was going to do that permeated bear thesis in the mid-2010’s has popped………its an incremental speed bump for the average consumer who’s TikTik video may load a microsecond faster because of it. The cell providers must hate it in a way - its an unbelievable capex expense with no pricing power….its literally an outreagous maintenance capex expense with ARPU’s still trending downwards regardless. Anyway its promise to allow people to ‘cut the internet cord’ and go to cell devliererd internet for their homes is now over…..it may work in some instances for some people but the use case is modest and so its ability to disrupt the cable internet provider concern I think is gone. The very first thunderstorm where your Netflix starts buffering on the kids will put a stop to any dreams of running everything through your cell provider. The second piece which removes (3) is that basically LBTYKA buddied up with mobile provider in each of their markets to create an Fixed Mobile Converged national champion no.1 or no.2 player (Virgin-O2 in UK, Sunrise-UPC in Switzerland, Vodafone-Ziggo in Netherlands etc,……..this has allied the 5G is gonna kill fixed concerns. This has also meant greater wallet share and lower churn to help with (1) or even the re-emergence of (1). I see a very clear OFCF story emerging here where synergies in the UK and Switzerland are going to drive a lot of cash to the holdco conservatively $2bn a year pretty soon……..which LBTYA is very comfortable to deploy into buybacks……..whether the market ‘likes’ LBTYA in the short or medium term eventually they buy back so many shares at these levels that Malone will be rubbing the markets nose in LBYTA’s Price to OFCF story. I’m holder here all the way up to ~$40 at which point I’ll re-look…..but broadly I sleep very well at night dreaming of all the houses I know sending 100euro a month to Mike, Malone and the boys & girls in Denver. Interested in your thoughts or what you might come across on your travels.

No doubt ?

Cobf bot - remind me in three years time ?

Price action disagrees with the above - as BTC today hits $32k, 50% off its ATH of $64k………..but yes the above pieces of the puzzle coming together ala El Salvador etc. could be the start of a sovereign adoption journey….…..but it could also be a head fake…depends what confirming evidence your searching for. I remain skeptical, you seem certain @TwoCitiesCapital the answer is between and the possible path for BTC is highly uncertain………and not inevitable as the laser beam eyed Miami peeps would have one believe.

6m42s in Mario does some merger math on DISC & T........suggests 50% upside in there somewhere but not quite yet...........folks in this thread have done some great work on the pro-forma valuation . Would be great if someone could parse Mario's math and explain it to me as you would to a labrador ? Joking aside I'd appreciate it

I dont see anyone really being interested in getting into the acquisition & capex cycle required.........Dish is the more I think about it goosed.....they have to try and build out this asset as dumb as it is to do so.....to not would be for Charlie to admit he burned billions of dollars on spectrum............the only viable plan I can see is that this thing gets stood up and Dish/Charlie pray that were still in ZIRP world in five years time and they've somehow managed to demonstrate this 4th captive carrier can generate some $Xbn dollars of OFCF and some desperate for 'infrastructure' PE firm pays up as if it was a youtube/instagram/tiktok toll road collecting an in perpetuity toll on the the lowest earning quartile of the American population. Everyone you've named there Amazon, Comcast, Google can achieve their strategic goals without actually owning the pipes i think...............connectivity has evolved such that even the lowest quality network, say Tmobile, provides a 'good enough' service to load your favorite YouTube or TikTok video quickly......one can argue that anything above 10mbps sustained, LTE speeds, is overkill for 99% of tasks performed on a cell phones today perhaps future capabilities (AR/VR) will require more but not today or over the next few years from what I can see.........connectivity has improved so much from the GPRS / 3G days where it really did matter who your provider was to a point where the challenge for the three carriers now is sufficiently differentiating themselves from each other in a meaningful & demonstrable way such that consumers can point to X vs Y difference. Verizon has this slightly today where it can seem to rightly claim that you're less likely to see a 'No Service' sign with them than any other carrier as you move around the US.....I'd argue this might be the last remnant of pricing power/ differentiation left in this commodity business...and wealthy people are willing to pay 20-30% more over T/ATT to have this covered. Put simply, excepting slightly the above, cellular connectivity has become a true commodity product with only the high capex/spectrum barriers to entry protecting the big three from bloodbath type pricing. In regard to the three companies you mention Amazon, Comcast & Google I just dont see the need: Amazon - cant see what advantage owning a captive cell network might bring to them. Becoming an MVNO provider and bundling a Prime Cell service may be a move in the future to reduce Prime customers churning out but right now that is simply not a problem. Amazon is in the Prime business and would only own something, with high capex demands, that provides exclusivity & customer acquisition benefits (see MGM).......cell service as I posit above has turned into a commodity product Comcast/Charter - fixed mobile convergence is a big trend in Europe where for example Liberty Global is driving the FMC mergers........its a very different market.....being a cell provider is brutally competitive in Europe with usually a national incumbent with legacy monopoly power from the copper days beating you to death + aggressive wholesale MVNO deals mandated by regulators. The folks in V, T & ATT should wake up every day and thank baby jesus they aren't operating in Europe. Pairing together with a cable provider might be the only way to rational pricing/profits in those markets where broadband speeds can still provide differentiation and by bundling you can increase ARPU inside larger wallet share while increasing NPS and lowering churn. The cable/cell footprint overlap in Europe also makes FMC a sensible approach there....Virgin Media in the UK for example reaches at least a third of the country c.22m people......Comcast/Charter just dont reach the same proportion of the population (what less than 15% of US pop across both) or land mass of the USA which limits the synergies in owning a cell provider outright and cross selling.......the same FMC benefits - bundling, lower churn, higher NPS......can be provided by an MVNO deal just with poorer economics than Europe Google - Google Fi MVNO is achieving i think whatever strategic aim Google has with the product...........endangering their Android operating system duopoly by vertically integrating a captive cell carrier into that ecosystem is just a dumb move especially as anti-trust noises ramp up Some left field scenario for this cell business and Dish legacy outside of PE scenario above is that things get so bad in the Sat TV land and wireline business & regulators are so desperate for a No.4 competitor to T/V/ATT that they allow a merger of misfit assets like Directtv, Dish and who knows Centurylink/Level3 to form some kind of mutant connectivity/legacy TV business that might have enough firepower to be sustainable. We'd be in cloud cuckoo land by then I think.

Any updated thoughts on how Dish can possibly compete with the Big Three to be a viable 4th carrier in 5G and nationwide cell business.........by the time they get their 5G network built out (& the Tmobile 7 year mvno expires) its gonna be 6G time and the new Capex/spectrum cycle beings again.............with a refocused on connectivity AT&T post-Warner serving mid-high end market....Verizon a premium connectivity focused FCF cash flow machine at the high end and Tmobile on the march having assembled an impressive spectrum bundle and retail footprint post-Sprint playing in the mid-low end. I see a pretty rational breaking out of the market . It seems like suicide to try to go toe to toe with the big boys with dreams of a virtualized network architecture that is kind of a hodge podge of promising but nascent technologies. Its for sure kind of bet the company stuff given the already existing leverage at Dish legacy, the recent dilutive capital raise is one of many to come I imagine unless an infrastructure player likes Phase 1 of the project and wants in on JV basis. Even now the Boost business that was picked up in the regulatory remedy is bleeding subs to Tmobile & MetroPC sub-brand. While the very low end cellular business is being addressed effectively by MVNO's and you could easily see a Mint Mobile (with Ryan Reynolds/Deadpool star power) becoming the 4th largest player by subs........and why wouldn't the Big Three use favored MVNO partnerships to ensure Dish never gets out of the crib to become a Tmobile v2.0 in the future. Core Dish is a melting ice-cube not even the 2020 pandemic could stop the slide in cord cutting which surprised me.......and shows how strongly ingrained the trend is......sports which is holding the bundle together really becomes vulnerable in a Goliath media world of Discovery/Warner....Disney/ESPN....Netflix.....as a pay anything customer acquisition tool.......Dish's attempts at branching out haven't really worked.....Sling is sub-scale and is now eclipsed by YouTubeTV + other offerings that have a better chance at leveraging 1st party advertising data.........Joe Biden's infrastructure plan, if enacted, will possibly see sufficient wired (or 5G) broadband speeds for OTT streaming to become an option for Dish's captive regional customers (just when Dish itself is busy building out cellular in cities) compounding lost subs. Anybody seen a bull case anywhere that really believes that Dish has a bright future in this new endeavor?

I think the main point still stands that WSJ article is working towards but didnt quite get there on - the increase in illicit crime facilitated by bitcoin/monero/others has not been met, yet, by truly incremental and wide spread improvement to society’s lot at a large since BTC’s invention. Nobody in my wider circle can say or articulate how the existence of bitcoin has benefited their lives in anyway. Not a single one. Btw just because your cousin Vinny bought an unproductive asset sardine and it went up is not a incremental societial benefit. I’m open to the idea that things are still very early and those benefits are yet to come but right now the burden of proof is on bitcoin evangelists because clearly were still in the “show me this makes things better stage” of crypto. I see lots of dreams, lots of tech laser beamed eye optimism and herd seduced by clever technology on the one hand ( a solution looking for a problem) and the usual get rich quick snake oil salesmen riding on the back of the credibility and enthusiasm of the nerds. Its a fascinating space from sociological perspective and must watch TV……….as the clicks and coverage demonstrates in main stream media and in the twitter-sphere……as someone said before in this thread the only area I might considering investing in is in the ‘picks and shovels’ end but frankly I dont have the stomach to hold my nose and pick up the dollars sitting on the ground. Every time I see a sh!tcoin listed with FIVE zeroes to the right of the decimal point or blatant pump and dump ‘articles’ in coinX publication, or full on scam like moonbois/DeFi100 scam, or thought leaders/ influencers (think Pomp) in this space so happily encouraging & goading their audience to HODL or buy the dip………..I get the same feeling I get when I watch documentaries on the great follies of the past……that human beings enmasse can be so greedy and thoughtless of their fellow man that they’d run over them in the pursuit of adding a half cents to their cents. In summary I think less of the human race the longer and the more I study the crpyto space. It actually makes me slightly depressed to dig deeper into it and the various schemes and traps set for retail (a lot of its retail audience disgustingly being retail in developing countries with low incomes (Indonesia, Philippines etc.). I get to see where the marketing dollars get spent for every West Coast companies sh!tcoin launch. I want to be clear I think at its core crypto or more correctly blockchain has a dedicated group of honest nerds in love with the possibly of software to solve real world problems and maybe they will….…….in their orbit, attracted by the grayness of regulatory classification, might be assembled one of the highest densities of amoral people ever seen in human history in a single industry with the exception of probably 17th century piracy. P.S. - stuff like the below…….its so accepted even slightly celebrated that the space is rotten top to bottom……its really amazing…..but I guess like a casino you know the game is rigged ….you just hope you get lucky (or your in the RIGHT secret telegram group that isn’t in the bag holder group) https://twitter.com/twocommapauper/status/1397106939193085952?s=21

DeFi is the future though i thought ? $32 million stolen from what i can see………..small-ish change in crypto land Its when the USDT guys or similar disappear with a few billion that folks will wake up to quality of counter parties in this space……….one thing I can say about crypto for sure……..is that all things being equal its improved the average honesty & integrity level in promotional finance………cause every sleazeball I know in the outer edges of my professional circle has migrated over time into crypto/blockchain

Your right - its the victims fault, they did it to themselves ?

Let's talk about why cryptocurrency is the single factor that created the ransomware plague that is ravaging our healthcare system and public infrastructure. (1/) https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1395683698859814912?s=21