RESEARCH ALERT-Salomon restarts UK telecoms
LONDON, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Salomon Smith Barney said on Thursday it has re-initiated coverage of UK telecommunications groups, with ``buy' ratings on Colt Telecom Plc (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: CTM.L)(Nasdaq:COLT - news), British Telecom (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BT.L), Energis (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: EGS.L), NTL (Nasdaq:NTLI - news) and Orange (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: ORA.L).
It also set ``outperform' ratings on Vodafone Airtouch (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: VOD.L), Cable & Wireless (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: CW.L) and Telewest (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: TWT.L).
Salomon set price targets of 19 pounds for both Colt and Energis, 13 pounds for BT, 12.50 pounds for Orange, 320 pence for Telewest, and 15 pounds for Vodafone.
Since the investment bank was an adviser involved in NTL's purchase of C&W's cable television business, it was restricted from publishing forward estimates for the two companies.
However, it said it valued C&W at well above 12 pounds on a sum-of-the-parts basis.
In a series of August 9 reports, Salomon Smith Barney said the recent sell-off in telecom stocks presented a ``great buying opportunity.'
It said UK carriers were well positioned because of increasing demand for bandwidth for Internet and data traffic was ``bringing about a virtuous circle of value creation.'
The UK market is also strong because it is a key port for transatlantic traffic and has an immature mobile phone market. The city of London also helps drive massive data traffic. |
