DASHBOARD: Telco & ICT valuation comps for March 2023

Dashboard containing:

• Monthly and annual share price movements for main listed stocks
• Key earnings multiples
• Forward earnings multiples vs forward growth estimates
• Share price movements tracked over last twelve months

Commentary

Key developments

Overall, Telco & ICT stocks in Australia and New Zealand are down over the last year, with wide spreads in performance among the group. Larger companies are generally doing better while smaller players have lost ground as a jittery market favours established revenue and cost control over growth prospects.

Megaport

Megaport tumbled 27% in March, with its CEO Vincent English resigning to be replaced by Michael Reid, joining Megaport from Cisco. The CEO departure sent the heavily shorted share falling 14% in one sitting.

Pentanet

Pentanet stock had a rollercoaster March, with the stock climbing 50% in the first week after the company announced it had inked a deal with Optus to deliver the NVIDIA GeForce NOW cloud gaming service to Optus customers. However this failed to please investors as the stock sunk 8% for the month. The loss making company has trended downward since late April of 2021.

Superloop

After the company’s H1 FY23 results release in late February, the stock has been sliding downwards. The negative Net Profit After Tax has not sat well with investors who have lost interest in loss making technology companies.

Spark

Spark continued to please investors. The company has a consistent commitment to cost control and profitability, and has an unusually high ROCE over 20%, much higher than industry averages of around 4%