Only four days to T3 Day.
I know all 320,000 T3 investors are counting down the sleeps.
It’s only $1.60 a share and Telstra big shares closed at $4.80 last Friday, down 2 cents and the partly paids ended at $4.81.
By this Thursday, May 29 about 320,000 investors in the T3 sale will have to stump up $1.60 for each share they bought – and kept – when the Howard government sold the last of its stake in the Telco 18 months ago.
They will do so after a return of almost 45%, when adding dividends to the rise in Telstra’s share price, which beats the benchmark sharemarket performance over the period and makes a mockery of the jibes from the investment analyst and advice industries about how rotten an investment Telstra was and would be.
The plain fact of the matter is that for all the quibbles and darts directed at Telstra, its board and American CEO, Sol Trujillo, the big Telco has improved its financial performance dramatically in those 18 months.
Earnings, revenue and market share are better, the company has costs under control and despite its almost constant sniping at the Government, competitors, and it’s a company that knows how to do business profitably.
Of course its old monopolist ways are hard to shake, but it has proven to be a better investment than any one in the top end of the stockmarket thought.
The theoretical $1.61-a-share profit is far better than the disaster known as T2 when the $7.40 issue price was undermined by the $6.27 market price on the day the second payment was due.
It all seems a long time ago when doubt was in heavy supply about the success of T3.
There was the infighting between the Howard Government, some of its advisers, the company and the investment community about the right price and the size of the issue.
Telstra has come of age and even the bottom fishing share sharks are trying to grab shares on the cheap at $2.72 according to a warning from the company on Friday.
A company called Share Express is the shark. Ignore its approaches if you get one. The T3 offer, if you pay out the $1.60 this week and get control of your shares, will be finally worth it, unlike T2.
Telstra itself is a more profitable, more focused company and that has swung the opinion of the investment community behind it, rather than against it.
You might not like the loud, aggressive attitude and some of its ‘American’ ways but earnings are improving as are profit margins and the company is battling to keep its dominant position. Some would argue fighting too hard, but its existing and new shareholders would appreciate the improved look of the share price since T3.
