Lusa - Business News - Portugal: Vodafone Portugal invests more than €0.25B a year, poor return - CEO

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Lusa - Business News - Portugal: Vodafone Portugal invests more than €0.25B a year, poor return - CEO

Lisbon,April.21,2024(Lusa)-Vodafone Portugal invests "more than €250 million" annually,the CEO told Lusa on Sunday, nd although the Nowo deal is not"a matter of life and death", it raises doubts for the shareholder about the country's attractiveness.
In an interview with Lusa, the CEO of Vodafone Portugal discussed the consolidation of the telecoms sector, considering that in Europe, it will be "inevitable", and said that the operator would continue in Portugal and that he hoped the regulators and the government would understand the current situation in the sector and help it to continue to evolve.
"Every year, Vodafone invests more than €250 million" in Portugal, Luís Lopes said.
In addition, "we also have a base of people, employees, who not only work for Vodafone Portugal, but we have almost a third of people working for companies outside the group".
He added that despite a "difficult context, we have a significant weight in the investments we make and in the role Portugal plays with" the export of services and intellectual property, among other things.
"Now I also have to say that the shareholders or the Vodafone shareholder have seen investment in Portugal as not particularly attractive, for various reasons, and so it's also up to me, and working with the different entities in Portugal, be it the government or the regulators," among others, "to try and change that perception" that "Portugal is not a good country to invest in," he noted.
And this risk of considering that the country is not a good place to invest does exist, "particularly for many years (...) the regulation in Portugal of the telecoms sector was a significant problem," the CEO acknowledged.
However, there are changes, "particularly in the sector regulator with the new board," he said, alluding to the new president of the National Communications Authority (Anacom), Sandra Maximiano, who took office at the end of last year.
"We see a much greater openness to dialogue. There are certain points where we disagree with the regulator, but the important thing is that this dialogue exists, and I see this dialogue now existing," he stresses, acknowledging the possibility of a "positive evolution."
As for the Nowo deal, "it's once again a story that won't contribute and doesn't contribute to this perception of the country being a good place to invest," he points out, because "nobody can understand" the Competition authority's decision.
"It's difficult for our shareholders out there. I can't explain to them why an operation of this size has such an impact. And then once again," they wonder if it's the regulators in Portugal if they should invest in the country, he says, which translates into "something complicated".
"And that's the debate that I wish didn't exist, on the contrary, that it was a country in which we all want to invest," he says, acknowledging that Portugal has attracted "some investment, particularly in telecommunications infrastructure", which is the "best" in Europe.
Asked if he has already shared these concerns with the government, the CEO said not yet.
He says he hadn't had the opportunity to meet with the new government, which "has only been in office for a very short time."
Luís Lopes recalled that the telecoms sector in Europe has been one of the "least attractive from an investment point of view" and that "investors have fled" in general because its shareholder return "is worse" than agriculture, among other things.
"It's the sector that has had the worst returns," where "often well over 20% [is invested]" of revenues every year, he explained.
Over the last decade, "the telecoms sector has had returns below its own cost of capital, which means it would have been better to have put the money into something else rather than investing in a telecoms network," he pointed out.
In some countries, the problem "is even more pronounced than in others", as is the case in Spain and Italy, markets where Vodafone sold its operations because the prospects for a return on investment were relatively slim.
"For example, in Italy, what was done was a sale to another company, but there is a consolidation," he continues, noting that this is a way of achieving efficiency gains and "thereby producing slightly better returns that can justify the investments".
In this sense, how does Vodafone see itself as a shareholder if Nowo is not consolidated with the Portuguese subsidiary?
"Nowo isn't a company that would substantially change our profile (...), it's not a matter of life or death for Vodafone Portugal (...), now that there's a regulator that opposes this transaction, it obviously raises the question: is this country attractive or not attractive from an investment perspective," he asks.
In Europe, consolidation "is inevitable". Not least because the European bloc "has hundreds of telecoms operators, as opposed to markets like, for example, the United States, which has three major telecoms operators and an internal market the size of Europe," he argues.
As a result, "American operators work much more efficiently by scale, have more return, are able to attract more investment, invest more profitably and create a virtuous circle". But if in Europe "there are no consolidations, I fear that the sector will at some point have a much more serious problem than some people see today," he warns.
"In a country where three/four/five networks are built, it's unlikely" that these "will be profitable" and, therefore, "some operator or some operators or all operators will end up not making a return on the investment they made in these infrastructures above the capital cost. And which will they be? In some countries, it ends up being all of them," Luís Lopes argues.
As for what he expects in three years' time, he asserts that "Vodafone will continue on its path" as it did when it started 30 years ago, "which is to have the best infrastructure networks in the country".
"We were pioneers in many things in this country, and we will continue to be. We are a benchmark within Vodafone for what we do; we have a very strong focus on the quality of service we provide to customers," so the message is that "in three years' time, Vodafone will be in Portugal," he emphasises.
"I strongly believe we will continue in Portugal. I hope that the regulators and the government will create and understand this situation in the sector and that they can also contribute so that the sector continues to evolve, not only creating opportunities for consumers," so that "companies benefit from these technologies, but that operators also have the incentives to continue investing as they have so far."
Technology is always evolving, "and the country's competitiveness depends to a large extent on the telecoms sector and the health of the sector," he concludes.
ALU/ADB // ADB.
Lusa

Agency : LUSA
Date : 2024-04-22 10:40:00

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