I will preface my remarks by first disclosing that I am a long-term shareholder of ATI and a buyer of ATI call leaps. This is an indication that I think ATI is a very high quality investment.
However, after reading this thread for the past few months one would think that ATI is the premier, pure play cellular company in the world and exists in a vacuum. There is another company, dare I mention, located in Great Britain, the Vodafone Group (VOD), (yes, I own these shares too), which is also a pure play, cellular company that ATI is best benchmarked against.
The facts are that VOD has been, for a longer period and more consistent period of time, more profitable than ATI and pays an increasingly rising dividend on its common shares year after year. While the U.S. telephone market is still shaking out VOD is competing in one of the most competitive and deregulated telephone markets in the world.the United Kingdom. Due to the way VOD was formed, and practices at the time, the company has less debt and did not have to pay for cellular licenses in many markets compared to ATI.
In many ways the companies are alike, they both have high quality management teams with a vision, they are proactive competing for cellular licenses around the world, note they are both part of the same group that recently won the Egyptian license, and they both have extensive international holdings around the world in the same and different countries from each other. It is obvious to me that these two companies are ready for the 21st century and are taking advantage of the exploding, lucrative, cellular phone market.
It is also curious to note that both these companies will probably be taken over at some point in time, if not by each other, (I wish-what a company that would be), than by one of the baby bells or a bigger international company that could absorb the costs more easily.
My conclusion is that if ATI succeeds, and it is positioned well to do so, it will be the next VOD but VOD at this point in time is the premiere pure-play cellular company in the world today. My hope is that one buys out the other to form an unbeatable cellular combination that would compete in every part of the world. The reality probably is that each will be bought out be a bigger company and their full potentials will never fully be realized because each will be part of a bigger, more bureaucratic organization.but there is big money to be made in either company nevertheless.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the thread.your comments. |
