Possible new market entrant a risk for Belgian telecoms, HSBC says

Orange Belgium NV

06/04/2022 09:34

** The Belgian telecoms market has so far presented "one of
the most attractive structures in Europe," but a new entrant
poses a risk for current players, HSBC says 
    ** In March, Belgium's telecoms regulator BIPT had cleared
five operators for the country's 5G mobile auction scheduled for
June  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N2VP25S, indicating later that an unnamed bidder paid
83.4 million euros ($90.75 million) for blocks of reserved
spectrum
    ** "The risk is up for all players" the broker says,
flagging risk on retail pricing and potential pressure on free
cash flows, adding that the new entrant may become a mobile
challenger for Proximus  PROX.BR , Orange Belgium  OBEL.BR , and
Telenet  TNET.BR 
    ** It downgrades Orange Belgium  OBEL.BR  to "hold" from
"buy" on uncertainty regarding the new market entrant, which it
says offsets potential for cost-cutting synergies arising from
the VOO acquisition  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nASN0020YI urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2SE1XJ
    ** "Until we gain clarity on (...) impact of all the moving
parts on the market structure, we choose (to) rate all three
stocks Hold" - HSBC
    


($1 = 0.9190 euros)

 (Reporting by Olivier Sorgho)
 ((Olivier.Sorgho@thomsonreuters.com; +48 58 769 66 54;))