Forum Archive Index - February 2000

[frank <frank.fernandez@xtra.co.nz>]

Philip,
There will be a lot of interest (mainly institutional) in Telecom shares
over the next two weeks.The company's quarterly results (to 31 Dec 1999)
is due before the end of this month and I suspect this will be announced
at the same time as the launch of Telecom's E-Solutions brand on 23
February. 
E-Solutions is a strategic alliance between Telecom, Microsoft and EDS,
and was set up to deliver a full range of e-commerce applications to
corporate and business customers. Head of E-Solutions is Jane Freeman,
former Chief of ASB's Bank Direct who was headhunted by Telecom last
November.
Putting aside the Government's sabre-rattling in threatening to reduce
Telecom's monopoly, the company will have some good news to offer to
investors. At the end of last year, it had a record growth year for
connections to its mobile network. And Telecom's XTRA service now has
250,000 customers (some 150% more than IHUG) and expects to add another
100,000 customers to this base by the end of the year.
The logical (and widely-discussed) move for Telecom in the near future
would be to "float" XTRA which would open up the possibility of an
alliance between XTRA and a multi-media company. Now that would most
certainly put the Force-IHUG merger in the shade. This possibility has
not been discounted by Telecom Head, Theresa Gattung.
Hope the above information is of some use.

Frank Fernandez

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