18th October 2007 : Leadcom voted "AIM International Company of the Year for 2007"




Main Web Site : http://www.leadcom-is.com/

Investor Relations Email : investorsinfo@leadcom-is.com

I imagine Panmure's initial coverage would be more positive now, no reason to delay that further.
2517

http://www.ciol.com/content/news/Deals/2007/107041601.asp


Ericsson, Nokia to get $5 bln BSNL contract

Bids for the 45.5 million GSM lines contract were ordered by a court to be put on hold after Motorola, which did not figure among the winners, challenged the BSNL in October

Monday, April 16, 2007

By Unni Krishnan

NEW DELHI: Telecom majors Ericsson and Nokia are set to grab a $5 billion contract from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) after Motorola decided to withdraw a legal challenge, a BSNL official said on Monday.

Bids for the 45.5 million GSM lines contract were ordered by a court to be put on hold after Motorola, which did not figure among the winners, challenged the BSNL in October.

"As things stand now, Ericsson gets 60 percent and Nokia the rest based on the bids," an official at state-owned BSNL, who did not wish to be identified, told Reuters.

"We will take about 10 days to tie up the loose ends and place the equipment order to the companies."

The official did not give bid details, but a source had told Reuters in October the firm's bid was at $107 per line, valuing Ericsson's share of the tender at $2.92 billion.

India is the world's fastest growing mobile services market, boosted by call tariffs of as low as 2 U.S. cents a minute. It has a total of nearly 121.4 million GSM users after adding 6.1 million new users in March.

Motorola said on Monday it was withdrawing its case against the award and looked forward to its continued partnership with BSNL, India's third-largest cellular operator.

The U.S. firm said the withdrawal did not reflect any change from its stand on the tender award.

"In view of the tremendous telecom growth taking place in the country and BSNL's petition of capacity constraints to have its share in this expansion, Motorola has decided to withdraw the case filed in the Delhi High Court," the firm said.

Over the past one year BSNL, also India's top telecoms firm by sales, has been facing a critical shortage of GSM equipment that has resulted in it ceding market share to larger rivals Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Reliance Communications Ltd.

BSNL's networks are present in 21 of the 23 circles or zones making up the domestic telecoms sector. Its smaller state-run sibling, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd., is in the remaining two -- Mumbai and Delhi.

Reliance and Bharti have a nationwide presence.

The BSNL official said nearly half the new equipment was earmarked for rural areas, where nearly two-thirds of India's 1.1 billion people live and where networks need improvement.

India's cellular services remain largely city-centric more than a decade after their launch but carriers are now furiously expanding into vast swathes of rural India.

The five equipment vendors that had submitted technical bids were Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens, Motorola and ZTE Corp. Three of those were shortlisted for financial bids, with Motorola and ZTE not meeting criteria.

A nice write up on Bloomberg, and note the last paragraph about just how big India is going to be, something Leadcom holders have known for some time, and amazingly you can still buy Leadcom today as cheap as chips :)


Bloomberg News:
April 16, 2007

NEW DELHI: Ericsson, the world's biggest maker of wireless networks, and Nokia will split most of a $5 billion contract to supply gear in India after Motorola dropped its legal challenge to the award. Ericsson will supply 60 percent of the equipment for 45.5 million lines to state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam, with Nokia providing 40 percent, D.P. Singh, director general at the Indian telecommunications company, said in New Delhi. The state-controlled ITI will supply equipment for 18 million lines.

India's existing wireless operators, including Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications, will spend about 40 percent of their $20 billion of capital expenditures in the next two fiscal years on equipment, said an analyst, Shubam Majumder. Motorola, based in Schaumburg, Illinois, said it withdrew its petition before a New Delhi court to focus on winning new contracts. "India is adding more subscribers than any other country," Majumder, an analyst at Macquarie Securities, said in an interview from Mumbai. "It's by far the biggest market for 2G equipment vendors worldwide."

India, where fewer than one in five people have a mobile phone, is the world's fastest-growing wireless market. With a population of 1.1 billion, India is adding almost 7 million subscribers a month as local mobile-call rates fall to as low as 2 U.S. cents a minute. Ericsson had submitted the lowest bid, P. Balaji, vice president of marketing for the Swedish company's Indian unit, said on Oct. 9 after Bharat Sanchar said it was eliminating Motorola and ZTE of China on grounds that they failed to meet technical qualifications. "We are almost ready with the paperwork and can place the order in a maximum of 2 weeks to the two short-listed bidders," S.D. Saxena, director of finance at BSNL, said by telephone from New Delhi. "We are desperate for new equipment and it will help in expanding our telecom services in rural areas.

"In view of the tremendous telecom growth taking place in the country and Bharat Sanchar's petition of capacity constraints to have its share in this expansion, Motorola has decided to withdraw the case filed in the Delhi High Court," Motorola said in an e-mailed statement Monday.

The size of Bharat Sanchar's order will pale in comparison with those awarded by Bharti and Reliance Communications, India's two largest wireless operators, in the next few years, Majumder said. Bharat Sanchar is crippled by the government-managed bidding process, unlike the private operators, he said.

Shouldn't be long now until we have rns about new contracts, the market will take notice in due course and the ride will be worth waiting for...:-)

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=20070419073100Z2007

Nice potential acquisiton that will increase EPS this year :)


Leadcom Integrated Solutions Ltd 19th April 2007

Leadcom Integrated Solutions Ltd. ('Leadcom' or 'the Company'), (LSE:LEAD), a leading international provider of innovative telecommunication solutions, announces that it has signed a term sheet with a private company in its business
sector, with headquarters in Europe and extensive operations in Africa, which
are significant in relation to Leadcom's operations in CEEMEA. These new
operations would widen Leadcom's footprint into new countries as well as
strengthening some existing ones. Due diligence is now commencing and
negotiation of a definitive agreement, if successful, is likely to take up to
two months.

The acquisition would be accretive to the earnings per share from the time of
acquisition and can be funded well within the resources already available to the
Company.

and now let's see if sp actually wakes up .... would be jolly!

since posting this chart in mid march, sp has nicely breached what could have been a very difficult resistance at 55, that same point now forming a support ...... rsi is a bit toppy, but if a steady climb, sp may not get vertigo.

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You'll find some new April 07 information to read in the archive folder :

http://www.esnips.com/web/LeadcomInfo/



.

AGM is 10th of May for those interested.

Details, if required, can be gained from :

Yael Margoninsky,
Director of Marketing & Investors Relations

Tel: +972 9 7690011
Fax: +972 9 7690125
yaelm@leadcom-is.com

http://www.citywire.co.uk/News/NewsArticle.aspx?VersionID=91656&MenuKey=News.Home&NewsPage=4

* Panmure Gordon has a buy and 580p target for BAE Systems. initiates coverage of Leadcom with a buy and 89p target, has a hold and 260p target for nCipher, upgrades CSR to buy from hold raising target to 900p from 750p, has a buy and 13.50 target for Carpetright, a hold and 10 target for Alliance Boots, has downgraded Rentokil Initial to hold from buy with a 180p target, has a buy and 32 target for Carnival, a sell and 400p target for BSkyB and a hold and 13.20 target for Unilever

THis stock is overdue some coverage, looking forward to hearing updates at AGM

For those interested, the Panmure 1st May 07 Initiation Note is now available in the web folder below :


http://www.esnips.com/web/LeadcomInfo


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PP, Many thanks for the Report, much appreciated. Comforting Reading .. at last some recognition. Patience will out.

Some potential African contract news perhaps ? Leadcom did the full turnkey project in Ethiopa for Nokia in 2005, its highlighted as one of the project examples on the Leadcom web site ( http://www.leadcom-is.com/integratedSolutions//1/7/662.aspx ).

They are also working closely with ZTC, and given they put the last system in when Nokia won the Ethiopia ETC contract work, perhaps this time that ZTE have won it, the modile expansion side will be subcontracted to Leadcom Ethiopia to carry out, as they installed it in the first place.


http://english1.peopledaily.com.cn/200704/29/eng20070429_370752.html

UPDATED: 07:30, April 29, 2007
Ethiopia, China sign 158 million U.S. dollar telecom expansion agreement

The state-owned Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation (ETC) and ZTE, a Chinese telecom company, on Saturday signed a 1.39 billion birr (158 million U.S. dollars) agreement on three telecom service expansion projects.

The agreement includes the first phase of fiber transmission backbone, expansion of mobile phone service for the Ethiopian millennium as well as expansion of wireless telephone service.

According to the agreement, some 1.2 million mobile telephone lines will be provided to subscribers in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa and eight other towns in connection with the upcoming Ethiopian millennium celebration.
Moreover, the first phase of the wireless telephone expansion project with the capacity of 652,000 telephone lines will be also executed.
Upon completion, the projects will enable the corporation to provide standardized and quality telecom service to its customers.
The projects will increase the number of fixed and mobile telephone service subscribers to over 14 million.
ETC has designed and put in place a five-year strategic plan with a view to improving quality and coverage of telecom service across the country.

Source: Xinhua

Bharti Airtel setting aside 3.5 billion dollars cap ex..


http://www.hindu.com/2007/04/28/stories/2007042801271800.htm


NEW DELHI: Total revenues of Bharti Airtel grew by 59 per cent to Rs. 18,520 crore and the net profit by 89 per cent to Rs. 4,257 crore for the year ended March 31, 2007, company Chairman and Managing Director Sunil Mittal said here on Friday.

Revenues for the quarter ended March 31, 2007, improved by 58 per cent to Rs. 5,393 crore and the gross profit by 75 per cent to Rs. 2,241 crore. The net profits for the quarter was Rs. 1,353 crore, a growth of 98 per cent over last year. Bharti now has nearly four crore customers, representing an 86 per cent rise in the customer base as compared to last fiscal. "We have stepped up capital expenditure for this fiscal to about $3.5 billion for India and Sri Lanka, out of which 75 per cent will go towards mobile network expansion and DTH services,'' Mr. Mittal said. The company, which had invested Rs. 32,000 crore on networks, would set up 30,000 more base stations to carry mobile signals mostly in rural and new areas.

In line with emerging international practice, Bharti has adopted a rotation policy for statutory and internal auditors for a maximum tenure of five years and rotation of audit partner every three years. Accordingly, the board has recommended the appointment of S R Batliboi and Associates as statutory auditors and Ernst and Young as auditors for US GAAP for the current fiscal. The board has also proposed to appoint PriceWaterhouse, chartered accountants, as internal auditors after conclusion of its tenure as statutory auditors of the company.

Second week of May to Nokia/Ericsson, then allowing time to sub contract the various parts, so news for Leadcom end of May or early June perhaps ? if not earlier.



http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Nokia__Ericsson_bag_BSNL_order/articleshow/1990393.cms

Nokia, Ericsson bag BSNL order

PTI[ WEDNESDAY, MAY 02, 2007 03:40:50 PM]

New Delhi: State-run BSNL is likely to place a Rs 20,000 crore mobile telephony order with the two winners of the contract -- Ericsson and Nokia -- by second week of May to increase the capacity of its network.
"By the end of second week of May we will be issuing purchase order to these companies. Since this is a huge order, a lot of details need to be worked out and we are currently doing that," BSNL CMD A K Sinha told PTI.
"Once PO is issued and the companies accept the order, they have to produce the bank guarantee and then we issue the Advanced Purchase Order for the first phase of the 45.5 million lines," he added.
When issued, this would be the world's largest ever single tender for 45.5 million lines of GSM telephones.
By December, the first phase of BSNL's GSM expansion is expected to be in place. The first phase is for 17.5 million lines while the second and the third phases are for 14 million lines each.
With this, the pressure on BSNL's mobile service will ease off and quality of service will improve.
In March, the PSU topped the charts in subscriber addition with 1.98 million GSM subscribers, increasing its total user base to 2.74 crore.
The order got delayed by six months since as one of the disqualified bidders -- Motorola went to court challenging the tendering process. The process could start only after Motorola withdrew the case.
Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran has announced a 500 million telephone target by 2010 and also on an average 3 million GSM additions per month from 2008-2010.

Post from AFN from an AGM attendee........ (it was today) :



p4cman - 10 May'07 - 12:57 - 4832 of 4834

I attended the AGM earlier today (my first ever AGM!) so here are my findings,

- All resolutions were passed, but significantly resolution 3 incorporated into the company its ability to notify the market of shareholdings above 3% and for every 1% above that. As an Israeli company it was not previously bound to this and it was implied that some instituitions were not always forthcoming in their admissions to Leadcom. This will of course greatly improve shareholding transparancy.

- It was suggested that Israeli fund shareholding is now upto 30% and that this may have been respnsible for some of the recent buying activity. No clues as to whom may be selling.

- They said that upto 90% of 2007 forecasted revenue has been bagged. BSNL/Reliance etc are in continuing talks with Leadcom and it was implied that large/significant contracts will be announced to the market when able. They feel able to maintain operating margins at 12% and feel that new compeition isn't worrysome as they feel barriers to entry remain high. Also confirmed that they will be able to pick & choose work offered and have already refused work that wasn't suitable in their opinion.

- The European headquartered company which they are doing due diligence on will allow it go gain a further foothold in Africa.

- Recuring revenue is currently approx 20%.

- Ongoing consideration of a TASE listing.

Arik was articulate and struck me as very competent. Overall my attendance reinforced my optimism re Leadcom, which imo has a bright future.

Colins write up of the AGM over at TMF is now posted :


http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=10531377



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Bit of a move this morning, seller not around, are they clear ? or holding off ?

63p is a key level for me, as it was the price of the last equity raising in May 2006, if the bid clears 63p then it could be a bullish sign imv.