ITV Live Discussion

Nige_co 18 Mar 2019

ITV climbs on zombie M&A speculation BOLSAMANIA ITV climbs on zombie M&A speculation ITV shares were lifted on Thursday by revived speculation that the broadcaster could be a takeover target.

jackdawsson 01 Mar 2019

Long at 149.55 Hi Nige, Thanks. Much agree re the CEO. She’s steadily definitely turning things around for the better on a few fronts. No mean feat in a challenging macro climate. If economic conditions improve, the only way seems up. Moreover, many of us thought ITV was ridiculously oversold on fairly decent results when sold down to lows of 123.75. Yet another example of totally irrational markets mostly driven by fickle sentiment. An upward correction seemed only a matter of time. Here’s hoping we can consolidate & go higher sooner than later. Re taking profits: thanks again. In any volatile climate, taking decent leveraged gains as available is imperative. If I’d held real shares, I’d have sat for higher. But as I’ve more SB longs here, it’s a way of keeping an overall balance in that account. Not least protecting margin due to other longs elsewhere, some of which have very mixed fortunes, for eg. VOD. - Regards.

Nige_co 01 Mar 2019

Long at 149.55 Hi Jack, Nice quick trade mate. I’m hopeful that ITV may have turned a corner. After watching the ITV results presentation, I was quite pleased with ITV CEO Carolyn McCall’s presentation. She seems like a very switched on lady. I’m confident that ITV are in good hands, and with Britbox could transform ITV. A good outcome from Brexit could well be the catalysts to a re-rating in the ITV share price along with the FTSE100. Good luck Jack, and keep taking the profits. Regards. Nige

jackdawsson 01 Mar 2019

Long at 149.55 jackdawsson: Added 125.13. A 4th & final long here Closed 132.67. Settled for quick 7.5+ pts. Reasons: only intended shorter-term trade & I have 3 more to cover any continued recovery. - GLA.

jackdawsson 27 Feb 2019

Long at 149.55 regardless: Blimey there no stopping you Jack today, see am I following you around again Personally I hope this bounces for you mate Hi Regardless, I’m feeling a bit more emboldened due to fears of a no-deal Brexit slightly waning, though not yet entirely gone. Hence more rises across UK banks. IQE also recovering & some profit taken. Ditto with one LLOY’s SB. As noted in another ITV thread: today’s results weren’t that bad. Yes, there were a few negatives, but most revenues up, dividend increased to 8p, debt reduced. I’m genuinely surprised it’s fallen as it has. Will review today’s add when we see back to above 130, the others for higher targets. - Regards.

regardless 27 Feb 2019

Long at 149.55 Blimey there no stopping you Jack today, see am I following you around again Personally I hope this bounces for you mate

jackdawsson 27 Feb 2019

Long at 149.55 jackdawsson: Long at 133.58. Re-opened 3rd long at slightly better entry than before. This added to longs at 145.49 & 149.55 as posted. Added 125.13. A 4th & final long here as stock seems well oversold on sentiment. Today’s results weren’t at all bad. Target in the 130s for this one. - GLA.

jackdawsson 27 Feb 2019

ITV tipped to pleasantly surprise shareholders with its upcoming results regardless: Hi Jack this game is getting harder IMHO You appear to have a finger in many pies Hi Regardless, Thanks. I agree about difficult markets & keeping things relatively simple. As you know, LLOY remains my biggest hold by far. I’m also very bullish for that longer-term. Especially after PPI ends late August this year. PPI has cost LLOY some £19.4 billion. Once it’s over, presumably yield will continue improving & ditto the SP. However, I’ve not that many involvements compared to some people. CNA & TSCO closed profitably this year. Now just BARC, IQE, ITV, LLOY & VOD. FWIW, ITV has been very profitable for me overall going back some time. But harking back to your main point, indeed, no doubt some of what I hold will take into 2020 to come good. My only real concern is VOD which, despite the very high yield, holds a lot of debt & continues making new 10-year lows. I’ve expanded on those concerns on VOD’s BB recently. As for ITV: I know it seems an easy excuse to say this, but it really does seem well oversold largely on Brexit uncertainties. Ditto some UK banks. - Regards.

regardless 27 Feb 2019

ITV tipped to pleasantly surprise shareholders with its upcoming results Hi Jack this game is getting harder IMHO You appear to have fingers in many pies Maybe we best just stick to Lloyds Shares 2019 going to be a good year for Lloyd’s Easy 73p plus and maybe the 80s again

jackdawsson 27 Feb 2019

ITV tipped to pleasantly surprise shareholders with its upcoming results Or so I thought. SP gapped down to circa 127 on open. Dear me!

jackdawsson 27 Feb 2019

ITV tipped to pleasantly surprise shareholders with its upcoming results At first glance results seem more than decent in the prevailing circumstances. Progress on a few fronts. - GLA. [link]

Nige_co 26 Feb 2019

ITV tipped to pleasantly surprise shareholders with its upcoming results Hi Jack, Yes, I’m also looking forward, although fearing the worst with ITV’s results tomorrow, with my fingers crossed. I think that results will have to be very good to get a good market reaction. ITV need Carolyn McCall to start working her magic. Regards & GL.

jackdawsson 26 Feb 2019

ITV tipped to pleasantly surprise shareholders with its upcoming results Hi Nige, Needless to say, here’s hoping that markets are pleasantly surprised tomorrow. That said, if going by SP action recently, as I write struggling to stay above 132, it seems many are far from feeling positive. But if a beat on expectations is confirmed, you’d think the SP would recover to at least over 140 fairly sharply & consolidate. I imagine that for many holders that’d be a bare minimum to be seen as a positive. With still holding 3 leveraged longs here & my stakes in VOD back under pressure, I’ll be very glad to book more gains as available as nothing is 100% certain for long in this uncertain game. Especially when the climate becomes as volatile as it’s been recently. - Regards.

Nige_co 26 Feb 2019

ITV tipped to pleasantly surprise shareholders with its upcoming results Proactiveinvestors UK ITV tipped to pleasantly surprise shareholders with its upcoming results ITV plc (LON:ITV) - Last year’s results should beat expectations, current trading is likely to be better than feared, while bosses could launch a share buyback, too

Nige_co 15 Feb 2019

Overlooked ITV trades at a 42% discount to its closest British peer Investor's Champion – 15 Feb 19 Overlooked ITV trades at a 42% discount to its closest British peer Today, ITV is just as much a production company as it is a broadcaster meaning its 18% one-year share price fall looks excessive. Much has been made of ITV’s (ITV) “expensive flop”, Vanity Fair. The period drama which aired last Autumn boasted an all-star cast, a production budget swelled by a cash injection from Amazon Prime and a swathe of decent reviews. All it was missing was viewers, which is unfortunately the only thing that really matters in determining whether a programme is a success for the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster. Blame for disappointing viewer numbers has been pinned on the BBC’s Bodyguard, which aired at the same time as Vanity Fair and attracted the UK’s highest viewing figures for over a decade. How can ITV compete with that? But critics seem to be forgetting that ITV is Bodyguard as it owns the production company behind the hit show. And now that Bodyguard has been picked up by US streaming giant Netflix, ITV will reel in the rewards of its popularity for far longer than the BBC did. Today, ITV is just as much a production company as it is a broadcaster – a crucial attraction which investors (who have sent the share price down 18% in the last year) seem to be forgetting. In the first six months of 2018, the company created over 4,000 hours of original content, making it Britain’s largest commercial producer. In the nine months to September 2018 – the most recent set of numbers available – the group’s various production companies booked an extra £103m of revenue, taking the contribution from the Studios business up to £1.1bn, or 42% of the group total. Roughly a third of the content made by the studios is sold internally to ITV’s own TV and digital channels, but the rest is distributed around the world to companies including Amazon, Sky and Hulu. In 2018, Netflix was the biggest external customer of ITV’s studios. An undervalued producer in a world where content is king Intense consolidation in the media industry in 2018 (which included the culmination of a two-year battle for Sky) highlighted just how valuable original content producers have become. Walt Disney spent $71bn on 21st Century Fox in December – a price tag which values the company at more than 10 times adjusted income. AT&T’s long disputed acquisition of Time Warner valued the target company at 10.4 times adjusted income, while Comcast ended up paying 12.8 times adjusted operating profits for ITV’s UK peer Sky. And then there is Entertainment One (ETO) – the only other large content producer listed in the UK following the Sky takeover – which has an enterprise value (market capitalisation plus net debt) of 13 times last year’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA). The share price has risen 37% in the last year as investors speculate that it may be the next company bought for its content. By contrast, ITV’s enterprise value is just 7.5 times last year’s EBITDA. Surely that makes it a potential takeover target, if nothing else? Especially now that weakness in the sterling has increased the attractiveness of British assets to foreign buyers. Don’t forget the challenges That’s not saying that ITV has got everything sorted. Advertising still contributes almost all the revenue generated by the Broadcast and Online division which, in turn, makes up 58% of the group’s total sales. That is problematic considering many companies have been forced to slash their marketing budgets in the wake of recent economic challenges and are increasingly turning to Facebook and Google to tout their wares. In the last two years, the revenue ITV generates from advertising has fallen 7.5%. There was a slight let up in this downward trajectory in the first six months of 2018, largely thanks to the attractions of advertising around the football World Cup, but the respite didn’t last long. In November, the group announced that advertising revenue was likely to fall 3% in the final quarter of 2018 leaving it broadly flat over the full year. And don’t forget the looming cloud of digital streaming. Demand for the services provided by Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu has leapt in the last few years and in 2019, a new streaming giant will join the party when Walt Disney launches its digital platform. In the US, that has led to a wave of “cord cutting” as customers stop paying for expensive traditional TV channels and instead gain all their entertainment from cheaper streaming services. Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch think the European market, “underappreciates the pace of decline in TV consumption and concurrent rise in online video”. That concern prompted them to slash their price target for ITV from 210p to 110p in early January. Prepared for a new era in TV consumption But ITV isn’t just lying down and waiting for the new companies to steal its market share away. Over the next three years, management will invest £60m in home-grown content, the broadcasting business and a new direct-to-consumer service, which will host ITV’s immense catalogue of shows. True, this new offering may send the group headlong into competition with Netflix, but chief executive Carolyn McCall still thinks there is a huge opportunity for growth, particularly for a trusted company that boasts a strong catalogue of popular recurring shows. Ms McCall has a strong track record of reinvigorating struggling companies – she has already done it at easyJet and the Guardian. She has ‘refreshed’ the strategy since taking over as chief executive last January and now plans to make far better use of digital and data. Neither TV consumption or advertising expenditure are declining in Europe, they are both simply shifting to new platforms. The former to streaming services (apparently Netflix now accounts for 10% of TV time) and the latter to social media and digital sites. ITV has its branches in both of those arenas. Demand for its production company is rising around the world and its digital platform, ITV Hub is pre-installed on 90% of UK TVs and 75% of 16 to 24-year-olds are registered. ITV is a company which is just as likely to benefit from the enormous shift in the global TV market as it is to suffer from it. There’s no denying that it’s facing challenges, but they are more than priced into a share price which trades on just 8.8 times 2018 forecast earnings.