Landsec is braced for further blows to its rental income in the wake of the government-enforced lockdown and social distancing, warning that third-quarter collections in June could be worse than the shortfall suffered in the prior quarter. After receiving only 63 per cent of rent due at the end of March, the commercial landlord is not hopeful about recouping those arrears, taking a £23m provision that is equivalent to almost three-quarters of the outstanding amount. There is likely to be further pressure on estimated rental values in the retail sector, said chief financial officer Martin Greenslade.

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- These days, someone proposing a remote meeting or virtual happy hour is very likely to say, “Let’s Zoom.” While the coronavirus-induced lockdown has made Zoom Video Communications Inc. synonymous with video calls, it has also created a broader market, and whet investor appetite for stocks well placed to profit from the move to working from home. Pexip Holding ASA has satisfied some of that demand with Europe’s biggest technology initial public offering this year. The Thursday listing valued the Oslo-based company at some 9 billion Norwegian krone ($880 million) – not shabby for a business with just 370 million krone in revenue last year.The company is trading at a discount to its bigger, better-known competitor. If Pexip grows at the same pace for the rest of this year as it did in the first quarter, and profitability is consistent with previous years, then the listing gives it an enterprise value of more than 70 times forward Ebitda (a measure of a company's operating performance). Zoom is considerably pricier, with a valuation on the same basis of more than 370 times.If this were primarily a classic consumer-facing market, then investors would have to weigh up the prospect of a winner-takes-all battle. After all, that’s how things have tended to pan out for online services: Alphabet Inc.’s Google took search, Facebook Inc. dominates social media, Microsoft Corp.’s LinkedIn has professional contacts and so on. And Zoom has already entered the lexicon as a verb in much the same way as google or tweet.But the video-conferencing business model differs from those advertising-driven offerings: Most of the money is to be made from companies paying for premium services. Chief technology officers care less about what’s in vogue than about the best solution for their needs from both a technical and cost perspective. So while Pexip’s valuation is still punchy, there is room for multiple players. Concentrating on a business-to-business solution is far more likely to build a sustainable concern built on rational purchases — Pexip already boasts customers such as Vodafone Group Plc, General Electric Co. and Accenture Plc and annual recurring revenue from multi-year contracts jumped 50% in the first quarter. With 1.1 billion krone in IPO proceeds, it now has capital to accelerate that pace of growth.There’s significant demand to capitalize on the work-from-home trend. Shares in TeamViewer AG, a German maker of software that facilitates remote working, have climbed 33% this year, while the benchmark DAX Index has fallen 22%. Even at enterprise software giant SAP SE, Chief Executive Officer Christian Klein told Bloomberg News this week he’d love to have a video-conferencing solution in the company’s portfolio right now.Pexip must do a lot to justify its valuation, which prices in a huge increase in earnings over the next few years. It may be telling that many of its investors are using the offering as an opportunity to sell their stakes: The company will have a free float of some 80% of the share capital. Perhaps they’re sensing an opportunity to make hay while the sun shines. But if work from home is here to stay, then there will likely be plenty of seats around the (dining room) table.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Alex Webb is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe's technology, media and communications industries. He previously covered Apple and other technology companies for Bloomberg News in San Francisco.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Vodacom Group said on Thursday it has simplified its structure and created a standalone South African business as it seeks to manage its already expanded African footprint and grow further. "For Vodacom Group to play a central role of overseeing all operations across its African footprint, this has necessitated the creation of a standalone South African operating company," the company said. The group assumed management responsibility for Vodafone Ghana from April 1 and subsequently concluded a joint venture with Kenya's Safaricom after buying the M-PESA brand, product development and support services from Vodafone.

(Bloomberg) -- Follow Bloomberg on LINE messenger for all the business news and analysis you need.Alphabet Inc.’s Google is considering acquiring a stake in Vodafone Group Plc’s struggling Indian business, the Financial Times reported, joining Facebook Inc. in investing in the world’s fastest-growing mobile arena.Google may take a stake of about 5% in Vodafone Idea, a partnership between the U.K. telecom carrier and the Aditya Birla Group, though the deliberations are at a very early state, the FT cited people familiar with the matter as saying.Any deal would come weeks after Facebook paid $5.7 billion for a slice of digital assets controlled by Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man. The deal was a landmark investment followed in successive days by major influxes of capital into India’s tech industry led by private equity firms.Spokespeople from Vodafone and Vodafone Idea declined to comment. Google itself has big ambitions for India, a country with a huge first-time internet user population that serves as a test-bed for innovations in smartphone technology.Facebook’s alliance with Ambani’s Reliance inserted a powerful new competitor into a crowded Indian internet industry already contested by Google, Walmart Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and SoftBank Group Corp.-backed local outfit Paytm. But none of them have the reach of WhatsApp, the nation’s most popular communications platform.India has been a critical component of Google’s Next Billion Users initiative, its attempt to rope in hundreds of millions of users as they come on the internet in emerging markets like India. It’s targeted users in the market for products as varied as train station Wi-Fi, maps and digital payments. Vodafone’s Indian telecom unit is struggling following a $4 billion demand for back fees in addition to more than $14 billion of debt. The wireless operator, formed by the merger of Vodafone Group’s local unit and billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla’s Idea Cellular Ltd., hasn’t reported a quarterly profit since announcing the deal in 2017, and is headed toward insolvency in the absence of any relief from the government, Birla warned in December.India’s top court recently sided with the government and ordered that the full amount of back fees be paid within three months. When the companies dithered and filed pleas, the Supreme Court threatened to initiate contempt proceedings for non-compliance.(Updated with context throughout, comment from Vodafone)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Google is exploring an investment in Vodafone’s struggling India business in a move that could pit the US internet group in a battle against Facebook for the world’s fastest-growing mobile market, according to people familiar with the matter. One of the people said Google was considering buying stake of about 5 per cent in Vodafone Idea, a partnership between the UK telecoms company and India’s Aditya Birla Group that has been under severe financial strain. Any push by the Silicon Valley-based company into India would come against a backdrop of intense interest in the country’s booming mobile sector.

Google is considering buying a stake of about 5% in Vodafone Idea, the FT reported, citing one of the people. Vodafone said it does not comment on market speculation, while Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Last month, Facebook Inc agreed to invest $5.7 billion for a 9.99% stake in Reliance Industries' digital arm, Jio, which competes with Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel Ltd in India's fiercely competitive telecom market.

Huawei is facing an uphill challenge in the overseas market as its upcoming devices lack the full set of Google apps and services. In an announcement on Monday, the Chinese firm announced a partnership with Vodafone to bring its smartphones to the mobile carrier's European markets. The deal kicks off in May and will sell Oppo's portfolio of advanced 5G handsets as well as value-for-money models into the U.K, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Romania and Turkey.

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- It’s easy to ban a product that’s difficult to get your hands on anyway.That’s why Britain’s possible move to impose a stricter ban on Huawei Technologies Co. seems opportunistic, even if it does now make sense. It’s taking advantage of harsher U.S. sanctions on the Chinese telecoms-equipment giant to consider extending the U.K.’s halfway measures unveiled with great fanfare in January. A final decision will come after the government’s National Cyber Security Centre reviews implications for the security of the country’s phone networks.Earlier this month, the U.S. imposed more stringent guidelines on Huawei, restricting any firm that uses American equipment from selling to the Chinese technology company without its approval. That means Huawei won’t be able to get chips from companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. because they’re likely made using machines from firms such as California-based Applied Materials Inc. So Huawei may effectively find itself cut off from access to the high-tech silicon it needs for its networking gear. This provides a convenient excuse for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government to revisit its more nuanced approach with regards to Huawei, which provoked U.S. ire in the midst of efforts to strike a new Anglo-American trade pact and a rebellion from a group of Conservative lawmakers.Initially, in a break with the U.S., the U.K. had decided to retain some access to Huawei’s products for its carriers’ rollout of fiber-optic and fifth-generation mobile networks. It proposed capping the Chinese company’s share to 35% of non-sensitive parts of a mobile network in order to keep operators from being reliant on a Nordic duopoly of Ericsson AB and Nokia Oyj. Now ministers are drawing up proposals to reduce that share to zero.The irony is that, given the recent U.S. measures, Huawei may find it very difficult to keep competing for orders. The company probably won’t be able to buy many of the chip sets it needs to make things such as wireless base stations. The quality of those products will suffer as it’s forced to seek out new suppliers, likely in China itself, where semiconductor technology is still playing catch-up. That could make carriers rethink who supplies their 5G equipment even before any national ban kicks in, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Anthea Lai.Even though a ban on new Huawei gear might now be easier, the question of how to handle the existing networks is not. Huawei’s equipment currently accounts for two-thirds of BT Group Plc’s mobile network, and one-third of Vodafone Group Plc’s U.K. mobile network, according to UBS Group AG analyst Polo Tang. BT has already said that swapping the kit out would cost it 500 million pounds ($615 million) over the next five years. Reducing it to zero could double that expense, Tang said.The U.K.’s previous 35% limit applied to an operator’s overall network, but forcing operators to replace any already installed Huawei gear would strain capital requirements and jeopardize ambitious goals for new network build-out — Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he wants the whole country to have access to gigabit internet speeds by 2025. It seems that the government is taking that into account. The Times of London reported that the new proposals would only prohibit the purchase and installation of new equipment from 2023.Which serves to underline how opportunistic the new review looks. The main argument for letting carriers continue to use Huawei was to ensure that network investment continued apace. Now that the U.S. crackdown looks likely to reduce the quality and availability of Huawei products, it’s a chance for the government to assuage both rebellious lawmakers and critics across the Atlantic. And with global antipathy toward China rising over its handling of the Covid-19 outbreak and crackdown in Hong Kong, there’s now little point in further testing the straining U.S. alliance.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Alex Webb is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe's technology, media and communications industries. He previously covered Apple and other technology companies for Bloomberg News in San Francisco.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Goldfinch is investing $125 million for more than 80% of Vesta, executives said. It’s the first time that Vesta, which provides technology that analyzes customers’ online payments transactions to determine the risk of fraud, will be owned by private equity.

(Bloomberg) -- Alphabet Inc.’s Loon division signed an agreement with Vodacom Group Ltd to bring internet services to some of the most remote parts of the southeast African nation of Mozambique.Loon provides internet access to rural areas through a network of high-flying balloons linked to land-based operations overseen by a regional partner. In the coming months the companies will start the buildout, test the balloons and launch the service, a spokesman for Loon said in an email.Vodacom, based in Johannesburg, is Africa’s largest wireless carrier by value and has ambitions to expand beyond the six nations where it already operates. Loon’s balloon network is already available in Kenya, and the companies have received regulatory approval to build in Mozambique, Alastair Westgarth, chief executive officer of Loon, said in an emailed statement.Bringing fast, widespread internet to remote areas of Africa with satellites, mobile phone towers, and fiber has proven challenging for local operators. Vodacom, a unit of Britain’s Vodafone Group Plc, would like to expand the arrangement with Loon. A spokesman for the company declined to comment on the value of the contract.“This is even more pertinent in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, where more Mozambicans will now have access to health-care information through our Loon partnership,” Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub said via email. “We look forward to forging similar partnerships and projects across the continent.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

VOD earnings call for the period ending March 31, 2020.

Vodafone has chosen Jean-François van Boxmeer, the outgoing chief executive of Heineken, to be its new chair as the UK telecoms group faces a merger of its biggest rivals, Virgin Media and O2. Mr van Boxmeer, who spent almost 15 years at the helm of Heineken, will succeed Gerard Kleisterlee as chairman of the group on November 3. Mr van Boxmeer announced he would step down from Heineken in February.

I wanted to find five foreign, profitable companies that investors would find worthwhile. They would have to be cheap stocks with low price-earnings ratios and high dividend yields. The idea is that by diversifying a portion of your portfolio in non-U.S. stocks, you will enhance your overall returns.Often, foreign equities provide a return that is not correlated with U.S. stocks. At least, that is the theory. There are some significant drawbacks. I have managed non-U.S. equity portfolios on the institutional side for a good number of years and am well familiar with these issues.For one, non-U.S. stocks are subject to currency fluctuations. When the dollar rises, the U.S. dollar return on non-U.S. equities tends to lag. However, I have learned that this effect tends to recycle over a number of years and sort of washes out.InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading TipsA second issue is that often, non-U.S. stocks pay dividends just twice a year. This is because the vast majority of foreign companies only report their earnings semi-annually. However, the larger U.S. listed American Depository Receipts (ADR) or American Depository Shares (ADS) tend to report quarterly and pay their dividends that way. This occurs either because U.S. holders are a big percentage of the share base, or the company perceives that its stock price is "made" in the U.S.Moreover, another issue is that many non-U.S. companies will pay their dividends out as a percentage of their semi-annual earnings. In other words, the dividends paid each year can fluctuate, based on profits. U.S. companies tend to pay out a steady dividend that increases over time. I have learned again that the larger non-U.S. stocks have started following the steady dividend approach.The following five cheap stocks are worthwhile investments. They all have higher-than-normal dividend yields that tend to be paid quarterly. They also have low price-earnings ratios.Here are five cheap stocks -- that pay nice dividends -- to buy now: * BP Midstream Partners (NYSE:BPMP) * Publicis Groupe (OTCMKTS:PUBGY) * Rio Tinto Group (NYSE:RIO) * Vodafone Group (NASDAQ:VOD) * Total (NYSE:TOT)Let's dive in and look at these foreign, cheap stocks more closely. Foreign Cheap Stocks: BP Midstream Partners (BPMP)Source: Pavel Kapysh / Shutterstock.com Dividend Yield: 12.5%BP (NYSE:BP) is a profitable foreign stock with a nice 10.9% dividend yield. But I thought I would focus on one of its spinoff companies, BP Midstream Partners. BPMP has a higher dividend yield than BP.BPMP is a U.S.-listed master limited partnership (MLP) that is focused solely on the midstream portion of the oil and gas life cycle. That involves running oil and gas onshore and offshore pipelines and terminals.Source: Mark R. Hake, CFA Now that more companies are looking to store oil and gas, its assets are close to fully occupied.BPMP declared a quarterly dividend on April 15 for 34.75 cents per share. That works out to an annualized dividend of $1.39. At today's price of $11, the stock yields 12.5%. This is higher than BP's distribution yield of just under 11%.The company reported excellent results for Q1 on May 8. It says that the quarterly distribution is covered 1.17 times by its earnings. Moreover, BPMP says it is targeting a 5% increase in its distributions to shareholders in 2020 over 2019. * 7 Stocks to Buy That Have Nothing But Upside In Their Future At 7.3 times earnings, with a 16.8% free cash flow yield and a 12.5% dividend yield, BPMP is very profitable and cheap. Investors should take a close look at the company. Publicis Groupe (PUBGY)Source: shutterstock.com Dividend Yield: 4.9%Next on my list of cheap stocks is Publicis Groupe. This is a French advertising, communications and digital marketing company. Publicis has its tentacles in a lot of related areas like media, technology, healthcare communications and consulting services. It owns famed companies Saatchi & Saatchi and Leo Burnett.Publicis Groupe trades on the over-the-counter market. Its dividend yield has been about 9%, and the forward price-earnings ratio is about 7. So it is a profitable company, but a cheap stock.Source: Mark R. Hake, CFA On April 13, Publicis reported its revenue, which was up 17%, although it included the effects of the acquisition of Epsilon. Its organic growth was down by 2.9% over last year. The company did not report its earnings, which apparently are done on a semi-annual basis.In addition, Publicis Groupe decided to cut its dividend by 50% to 1.15 euros. This works out to about 31.12 cents per ADR.There are four PUBGY ADRs per French ordinary share. As a result, PUBGY has a dividend yield of 4.9%. The company said it will pay the dividend in September.So Publicis Groupe is a cheap and profitable foreign stock with an above-average dividend yield. Rio Tinto Group (RIO)Source: BalkansCat / Shutterstock.com Dividend Yield: 8.4%Rio Tinto is a $74 billion mining company based in London. It produces iron ore, bauxite, copper, gold, silver, aluminum and a host of other commodities.Last year, Rio Tinto started paying dividends four times a year. It is still not clear that it will continue with this practice. I suspect it will, as there does not seem to be an announcement to the contrary. Based on last year's dividend of $3.82 per share, RIO stock yields 8.4%.Source: Mark R. Hake, CFA Moreover, the company has a website section showing consensus financial information, including production, revenue and earnings estimates by all its sell-side analysts. This is not allowed by U.S. regulators for U.S. stocks, for no good reason. But it is fairly common for foreign stocks under looser financial information regulations.Based on this I estimate that earnings will be $5.04 per ADR this year. The company just needs global lockdowns to relax, or at least ease up.This will increase the demand for global committees, especially iron and copper. As demand rises, the price of these commodities will increase and the company will make more money.This puts the stock at a very cheap multiple of just 9 times earnings. So, combined with the 8.4% dividend, RIO stock offers very good value for investors. Vodafone Group (VOD)Source: Photos by D / Shutterstock.com Dividend Yield: 6.6%Vodafone is a telecom and cable TV company based in the United Kingdom. The company has a $43.8 billion market value and its ADR is listed on the Nasdaq Exchange.VOD stock has a very high dividend yield at 6.6% and is quite attractive to investors at this level. It pays the dividend twice a year. Vodafone kept its final dividend level with last year in its earnings announcement on May 12.Source: Mark R. Hake, CFA This requires a little explanation. First of all, Vodafone is like most other UK stocks that report their earnings and dividends twice a year. But for some reason, even though VOD's earnings are in pounds, it pays out the dividend in eurocents.So for this fiscal year ending March 31, the Vodafone annual dividend was kept stable at 9 eurocents per share. Now since there are 10 ordinary shares for every one VOD ADR, and since the exchange rate is $1.0823 per euro, the U.S. dividend per VOD ADR is about 97 cents. That makes the annualized yield about 6.6%.To make things more complicated, the upcoming final dividend (half of the total dividend, since an interim dividend was already paid) is set at 4.5 eurocents per ordinary share. This will be paid on Aug. 7, 2020. This effectively makes the upcoming payment a dividend yield of about 3.3%. This depends on the exchange rate when the ADR payment is set.Vodafone's earnings for the year ending March were reasonably good. The bottom line is that the company expects its FY 2021 free cash flow to decline slightly from 5.7 billion pounds to 5.4 billion pounds. As a result, I expect the dividend will be kept level.This makes VOD stock very attractive as a stable, well-covered and high-dividend play for income investors. Total (TOT)Source: MDOGAN / Shutterstock.com Dividend Yield: 8.8%Total is a French oil and gas company. Last year the company paid four dividends to its shareholders, although it calls three of them "interim" dividends and the last one a "final" dividend.This past year, the company increased its dividend 5% to 2.68 euros per share. This works out to $2.92 per ADR.Source: Mark R. Hake, CFA As a result, the stock has a very attractive dividend yield of 8.8% for investors.I estimate that the stock is also cheap at just 7.4 times earnings. In its most recent Q1 earnings presentation, Total said its break-even level is at $25 per barrel of oil.So I expect the company will be able to stay profitable this quarter. As economic activity picks up, the company will be able to make more money once the price of oil rises.This is an attractively priced stock at below 8 times this year's earnings, based on the company's recent earnings results.As of this writing, Mark Hake, CFA does not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. Mark Hake runs the Total Yield Value Guide, which you can review here. More From InvestorPlace * Top Stock Picker Reveals His Next 1,000% Winner * America's Richest ZIP Code Holds Shocking Secret * 1 Under-the-Radar 5G Stock to Buy Now * The 1 Stock All Retirees Must Own The post 5 Cheap Foreign Stocks That Are Perfect for Dividend Investors appeared first on InvestorPlace.

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. and some of the world’s largest telecom carriers including China Mobile Ltd. are joining forces to build a giant sub-sea cable to help bring more reliable and faster internet across Africa.The cost of the project will be just under $1 billion, according to three people familiar with the project, who asking not to be identified as the budget hasn’t been made public. The 37,000-kilometer (23,000 miles) long cable -- dubbed 2Africa -- will connect Europe to the Middle East and 16 African countries, according to a statement on Thursday.The undersea cable sector is experiencing a resurgence. During the 1990s dot-com boom, phone companies spent more than $20 billion laying fiber-optic lines under the oceans. Now tech giants, led by Facebook and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, are behind about 80% of the recent investment in transatlantic cable, driven by demand for fast-data transfers used for streaming movies to social messaging.Facebook has long tried to lead the race to improve connectivity in Africa in a bid to take advantage of a young population, greater connectivity and the increasing availability and affordability of smartphones. The U.S. social-media giant attempted to launch a satellite in 2016 to beam signal around the continent, but the SpaceX rocket carrying the technology blew up on the launchpad.Google announced its own sub-sea cable connecting Europe to Africa last year, using a route down the west coast.2Africa is expected to come into operation by 2024 and will deliver more than the combined capacity of all sub-sea cables serving Africa, according to the statement. The announcement comes after internet users across more than a dozen sub-Saharan African nations experienced slow service in January after two undersea cables were damaged.Facebook has partnered on the new cable with two of Africa’s biggest wireless carriers, Johannesburg-based MTN Group Ltd. and Telecom Egypt Co. The U.K.’s Vodafone Group Plc and Paris-based Orange SA, which both have a significant presence on the continent, are also involved. Nokia Oyj’s Alcatel Submarine Networks has been appointed to build the cable.The 2Africa cable will be one of the longest in the world, trailing Sea-Me-We 3, which is 39,000 kilometers long and connects 33 countries, according to Submarine Cable Networks.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Google is in early talks to buy a 5% stake in Vodafone Idea, the joint venture between Vodafone and India's Aditya Birla Group.

(Bloomberg) -- In early March, before the coronavirus pandemic triggered a global economic lockdown, SoftBank Group Corp. founder Masayoshi Son paid tribute to Rajeev Misra, the man who runs his $100 billion technology investment fund. Wearing a $70 Uniqlo down jacket, the Japanese billionaire put his arm around Misra’s shoulders at a town hall meeting in San Carlos, California. He said he would never forget the help Misra provided when he was at Deutsche Bank AG more than a decade earlier and spoke of the trust and respect they had developed since, according to a summary shared internally. “We are family,” Son said. But behind the smiles and talk of kinship, another story is unfolding, one about the perplexing relationship at the top of SoftBank. The Vision Fund this week reported a loss for the latest fiscal year of $17.7 billion as it wrote down the value of portfolio companies including WeWork and Uber Technologies Inc. That triggered the biggest loss in SoftBank’s 39-year history. Its shares have been hammered as investors fret that the virus will batter the company’s holdings even more, and Son has said he will sell $42 billion in assets.Misra is at the heart of the problem in ways that go beyond how the fund’s companies are performing, people familiar with the matter say. He has come under fire for alleged efforts to tarnish internal rivals, including a previously undisclosed clash with SoftBank Chief Operating Officer Marcelo Claure. The company has acknowledged that it’s conducting an internal review. At the same time, Elliott Management Corp., the activist investment fund that built up an almost $3 billion stake in the company, has asked SoftBank to name three independent directors and create a new board committee to improve the Vision Fund’s investment process, according to correspondence reviewed by Bloomberg News.“Misra and Masa go back a long way, but gratitude should only last so long,” said Justin Tang, head of Asian research at United First Partners in Singapore. “If Misra is not the problem, he’s at least a big part of it.”The corporate intrigue involving Claure began in 2018, when the Bolivian entrepreneur was under consideration to join the Vision Fund’s board and investment committee, according to six people with first-hand knowledge of the matter and a review of emails and documents. The fund — run by Misra as an affiliate of the Japanese company — hired a Swiss firm called Heptagone to conduct a background check on Claure’s possible ties to money laundering and drug cartels, said the people, who asked for anonymity because they feared retaliation. The report cleared him, but its focus opened a rift between the two men that kept Claure off the fund’s board and solidified Misra’s control, the people said.A Vision Fund spokesman said one of the fund’s limited partners, not Misra, requested the background check and Misra wasn’t involved in determining its focus. SoftBank has been told the same thing and doesn’t have evidence otherwise, people familiar with the matter say. But current and former executives across the SoftBank empire remain convinced that Misra played a role since the report was commissioned by his team and follows a pattern of similar accusations about undermining internal rivals. In March, days after the Wall Street Journal reported that Misra had allegedly orchestrated a campaign to sabotage two former SoftBank executives beginning in 2015, Son ducked questions about the story from investors at a meeting at the Lotte New York Palace hotel, according to two people who were present. One of them, a SoftBank shareholder, told Bloomberg News afterward that the company needs a Vision Fund leader more focused on tight operations than turf battles. Son has remained steadfast in his support. “Rajeev has been instrumental in the company’s growth and success,” Son said in a statement to Bloomberg. “He’s also been a very trusted senior executive and friend, and will continue to have my full support and confidence.” The Vision Fund spokesman denied that Misra was involved in any campaigns to undermine company executives. “The claims underpinning this story are untrue, and have been fully denied,” he said.But some SoftBank insiders are wondering how Misra has managed to survive. It may be, they said, that Son needs his financial expertise to navigate the next few months of asset sales, share buybacks and loan repayments as the coronavirus weakens portfolio companies, hurting SoftBank’s ability to borrow. Misra helped Son finance difficult deals before joining the company in 2014 and played a crucial role in raising capital for the Vision Fund. He has also established his own power base at the fund’s London headquarters, surrounded by a coterie of former Deutsche Bank colleagues.Still, there are long-term risks for Son in tolerating what many see as a divisive culture and chaotic infighting that have plagued the Vision Fund since its inception. “Misra personifies what Vision Fund is about — a bunch of dealmakers obsessed with leverage who have no business running a venture capital fund,” said Amir Anvarzadeh, a market strategist at Asymmetric Advisors in Singapore, who has been covering the company since it went public in 1994. “But it would be naïve to put all of their problems at Misra’s feet. Son has the ultimate word.” Son and Misra share a bond as outsiders who left their native lands to study abroad and ended up finding wealth and prestige. Son, 62,  went to the University of California, Berkeley and launched businesses in the U.S. before founding SoftBank in Japan in 1981. Misra, 58 and born in India, earned degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before embarking on a career in banking at Merrill Lynch.But while Son never worked for anyone else, Misra always operated within large organizations, navigating their power structures. He moved to Deutsche Bank in 1997, where he eventually became global head of credit trading, turning it into one of the biggest traders of credit-default swaps — instruments at the heart of the 2008 financial crisis. One of his traders, Greg Lippmann, featured in Michael Lewis’s The Big Short, bet on a crash in the U.S. housing market, even as Deutsche Bank was a leading player in creating and selling mortgage-backed securities to investors. With slicked-back hair and a thicket of woven bracelets around his wrist, Misra speaks with an intimacy that suggests he’s confiding in a listener as he races from one subject to the next with a burning urgency. He wears his eccentricities proudly: He often padded around the office in stockinged feet, incessantly smoking, vaping or chewing nicotine gum.Misra joined SoftBank after stints at UBS Group AG and Fortress Investment Group. He started as head of strategic finance, reporting directly to Son, but his connections to the boss preceded his appointment. In 2006, Deutsche Bank helped SoftBank finance the acquisition of the Japanese wireless operations of Vodafone Group Plc, one of the most consequential deals of Son’s career. The $15 billion purchase was the largest leveraged buyout ever in Asia at the time and faced skepticism because Vodafone had struggled against the country’s top wireless players. Son succeeded in turning the business into a viable competitor, in part by persuading Steve Jobs to give him exclusive rights to the iPhone in Japan, and completing SoftBank’s transformation from software distributor to telecom conglomerate.Misra proved his worth at SoftBank as well. Son had acquired the troubled No. 3 wireless operator in the U.S., Sprint Corp., but the turnaround had proven far more difficult than the one at Vodafone. Misra put together a novel loan package secured by Sprint’s wireless licenses that helped it avoid bankruptcy.From the start, Misra clashed with Nikesh Arora, a hotshot former Google executive Son recruited in 2014 to oversee SoftBank’s startup investing, according to people with direct knowledge of their relationship. Arora would openly question Misra’s judgment, even on financial issues, leaving him fuming, the people said.In early 2015, Misra set out to undermine Arora and one of his allies at SoftBank, Alok Sama, the Wall Street Journal reported in February. The newspaper said Misra worked through intermediaries to plant negative stories about the executives, concocted a shareholder campaign against them and attempted unsuccessfully to lure Arora into a sexual tryst. “These are old allegations which contain a series of falsehoods that have been consistently denied,” a spokesman for Misra told Bloomberg News, adding that Misra thinks highly of Arora and that the two men worked together productively on many deals. “Mr. Misra did not orchestrate a campaign against his former colleagues.” A spokesman for the Wall Street Journal said the paper stands by its reporting.Arora was cleared of wrongdoing by SoftBank, but he left in 2016 and is now chief executive officer of Palo Alto Networks Inc. Sama, who had been in charge of SoftBank’s investments and inked many of its early startup deals, seemed a logical candidate to play a leading role at the Vision Fund. But some of the limited partners expressed reservations about him, people familiar with the matter said. Arora didn’t respond to requests for comment, and an attorney for Sama declined to comment.Meanwhile, Misra solidified his ties to Son. He spent time in Tokyo in early 2017 as Son worked on the acquisition of Fortress. He also used his former Deutsche Bank connections to help close a deal for Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to become the Vision Fund’s cornerstone investor, chipping in $45 billion, almost half of the capital. That May, Misra was named head of the Vision Fund. The clash with Claure began after Sama was sidelined, according to SoftBank executives familiar with the matter. Son hit it off with Claure in 2013, when SoftBank took a majority stake in Brightstar, a Miami-based mobile phone distributor he founded that became one of Latin America’s fastest-growing startups. The 6-foot-6 executive quickly demonstrated how SoftBank could save millions on its purchases, winning respect from his new boss. A year later, Son tapped him to replace Sprint’s CEO. Claure made enough progress fixing the wireless operator that Son rewarded him with a seat on SoftBank’s board in 2017 and named him chief operating officer the following year. Then, Son gave Claure a new challenge: building teams in government affairs, legal services and operations to support the company’s expanding portfolio. Part of the mission was to assemble and lead a task force that would help startups fine-tune their strategies to improve execution and speed their path to profitability. The mandate would place him at the center of the action as SoftBank transformed itself into a technology investment conglomerate. It also apparently put Claure on a collision course with Misra.The first hint that this might not be a typical corporate rivalry came months before the Heptagone investigation, according to a person close to Claure. In the summer of 2018, Stephen Bye, a former Sprint executive, reached out to Claure with unsettling news. Bye, Sprint’s chief technology officer until 2015, was approached by a private investigator trying to dig up dirt on his former boss, the person said. Bye declined to talk to the investigator and immediately called Claure. Claure, 49, was used to people poking into his past because he was often approached about joining corporate boards. But he had also heard speculation about Misra’s role in the campaigns against Arora and Sama, and he expressed concern that he was next, the person said. The Vision Fund spokesman said neither Misra nor anyone else from the fund was involved in the approach to Claure’s former employee. Bye declined to comment.In October 2018, after the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi agents, Son and Misra traveled to Riyadh to meet with officials of the sovereign wealth fund, their biggest investor. They made the trip during the Saudi fund’s annual investment conference, even as other global executives canceled their travel plans. While the two men didn’t attend the conference, Son met with the head of the Public Investment Fund, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, and laid out the new role he envisioned for Claure. He would join the Vision Fund board and its investment committee, and manage the group of operations specialists when it was embedded within the fund, according to a proposal reviewed by Bloomberg News. The changes, if implemented, would give Claure broad authority at the fund.Later that year the Vision Fund commissioned the Heptagone report. What made it different from routine due diligence, according to the people directly involved, was that the sleuths were asked to answer three specific questions: Was Claure or any company under his control ever involved in money laundering, tax evasion or fraud? Was he ever in a relationship with individuals charged with or convicted of money laundering, drug trafficking or other crimes? Had he been convicted of a crime in the U.S. or elsewhere? Claure’s company, Brightstar, generated enormous amounts of cash selling used phones in Latin America in the 1990s, exactly the kind of business that could be used for money laundering, Heptagone’s report said. But the report found no evidence Brightstar or Claure were involved in such activities, people who saw it said.Heptagone went on to say that Claure had a long-standing friendship with Carlos Becerra, a San Diego businessman whose name had appeared in U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency reports for possible involvement in cocaine distribution and money laundering. After Becerra sold a unit of his company to Brightstar, in 2007, the two men remained friendly. A photo on Becerra’s Instagram account from June 2015 showed him posing on a boat dock with Claure. Becerra, who hadn’t been charged with a drug-related crime, told Bloomberg News that his relationship with Claure was cordial, not close. He denied any involvement in money laundering or drug dealing and said he has held a California liquor license since 2001, which requires a background check and isn’t available to anyone with a criminal record. The closest Claure came to a crime, the Heptagone report found, was his involvement in a Miami bar fight in the 1990s in which no one was hurt and he wasn’t charged. Heptagone co-founder and managing partner Alexis Pfefferlé said he couldn’t confirm or deny his firm’s involvement in any report but added that Heptagone “has always been able to fully complete its assignments.”The Vision Fund spokesman said the fund often runs background checks on employees, so it wasn’t abnormal to conduct one on Claure, given his potential involvement in operations. The only thing atypical, he said, was that it came at the request of a limited partner. While the Heptagone report cleared Claure, its underlying premise appeared to be that a Latin American entrepreneur must have built his business through unsavory means, according to the people who reviewed the document. Claure was furious. He went to Son, outraged at what he saw as an attempt to damage his reputation, the people said. SoftBank took over the due diligence from the Vision Fund and gave the job to Kroll, a more established security firm, the people said. Kroll, which declined to comment, found no problems in Claure’s past. But suspicious that Misra was behind the campaign, Claure told Son he wanted no formal part of the Vision Fund, the people said. Son ultimately decided to keep the two out of each other’s way. In February 2019, about 40 employees Claure had hired were shifted over to work for Misra. Claure, who had moved his wife and four youngest daughters to Tokyo less than two months earlier, headed back to Miami. He has since helped close Sprint’s merger with T-Mobile US Inc. and is leading the effort to turn around WeWork. He also oversees a Latin American investment fund for SoftBank and co-owns a Major League Soccer team, Inter Miami, with former British star David Beckham. SoftBank denied that Claure and Misra clashed over the operations group and said both men agreed that folding it into the Vision Fund was in the best interests of the business. “While we have had our occasional differences,” Claure said in a statement, “I have a close and collaborative relationship with Rajeev, including my involvement with many of the Vision Fund’s largest portfolio companies.” The relationships Misra forged at Deutsche Bank continue to underpin his power and influence. Colin Fan, a former co-head of the investment bank, moved to SoftBank in 2017, joining more than half a dozen former bankers and traders from the German lender. But arguably the most important connection forged at Deutsche Bank is Misra’s relationship with London-based merchant bank Centricus, founded by three former Misra colleagues: Michele Faissola, Dalinc Ariburnu and Nizar Al-Bassam. The firm, originally called FAB Partners for the principals’ last names, began working with SoftBank in 2016, when Misra asked it to help find financing for the Vision Fund. Centricus advised on the creation and structure of the fund, suggested employees and helped cement the investment by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund — a deal hashed out in October of that year when Mohammed bin Salman, then the country’s deputy crown prince, met with Son in Tokyo.For its work, Centricus negotiated a payment of more than $100 million, people familiar with the arrangement said. And the fees kept coming. Centricus advised SoftBank on its $3.3 billion deal for Fortress and teamed up with Son on a failed bid to start a 24-team soccer tournament with FIFA. The firm also was brought in to help raise capital for a second Vision Fund, Bloomberg reported in mid-2019.Some SoftBank and Vision Fund executives have questioned the amount paid to Centricus, the people with knowledge of the arrangement said. Although fees for helping companies raise capital are often about 1%, making the sum paid to Centricus a good deal for SoftBank, executives critical of Misra’s leadership were piqued that the recipients were former Deutsche Bank colleagues, the people said. Centricus and SoftBank both declined to comment about fees or any other aspect of their relationship.Faissola left the firm after his connections with the Qatari government created tension with the Saudis. But Centricus hired another former Deutsche Bank colleague of Misra’s as a consultant: London-based hedge fund manager Bertrand Des Pallieres, a senior trader at the bank from 2005 to 2007 who reported directly to Misra. Des Pallieres was under consideration for a job at the Vision Fund in 2018, the people said, but that all changed after the Wall Street Journal reported that Misra had recruited Italian businessman Alessandro Benedetti to undermine Arora and Sama. Benedetti, who denied through a spokesman that he had anything to do with those efforts, was a business associate of Des Pallieres. A year later, Des Pallieres became a Centricus consultant.SoftBank’s relationship with Centricus began fraying last year, according to people familiar with the matter. Misra argued that SoftBank had no further need for the firm, as Son had developed ties of his own with MBS, the people said. And Misra had his own relationship with Al-Rumayyan, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund head. In October 2019, Misra and Son attended a party for Al-Rumayyan and MBS on a yacht in the Red Sea, people with knowledge of the event said, confirming a Wall Street Journal account.By then, SoftBank had hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Cantor Fitzgerald LP to help search for new investors. Some SoftBank executives were surprised by Cantor’s involvement, as the New York-based bank had little experience sourcing investments for initiatives like the Vision Fund. But Cantor’s president since 2017 has been former Deutsche Bank co-CEO Anshu Jain, a onetime boss and childhood friend of Misra’s.The Saudis have held off committing capital to a second Vision Fund, and Son this week said he had to stop raising money because of difficulties with WeWork and other investments. SoftBank stepped in to save WeWork last year after its failed initial public offering and put Claure in charge of turning the business around. But the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the challenges of drawing people to co-working spaces.“Vision Fund’s results are not something to be proud of,” Son said at somber press conference in Tokyo on Monday, with reporters and analysts calling in remotely because of the pandemic. “If the results are bad, you can’t raise money from investors.”Elliott, the fund run by billionaire Paul Singer, has pressed for changes, and Misra has been involved in those talks, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. He has met frequently with Singer’s son Gordon, the people said. But two people familiar with Elliott’s operations say the firm has asked SoftBank to get to the bottom of Misra’s alleged involvement in campaigns against his colleagues and has expressed dismay at the infighting among top managers and how much of that spills into the press. A spokeswoman for Elliott denies that the company is pushing for an investigation, and a SoftBank spokesman said Son hasn’t received such a request.SoftBank’s board probed who was behind the campaigns against Arora and Sama but didn’t uncover any definitive evidence, people with knowledge of the matter said. While the company has said it’s looking into the most recent Wall Street Journal allegations, several senior executives have downplayed their significance. Ron Fisher, a SoftBank director, called the February story “another example of people anonymously spreading misinformation and innuendo about our executives,” according to an email to Vision Fund managing partners.SoftBank's board has lost several of its most independent voices in recent years, the kind of directors who could question his decisions. Shigenobu Nagamori, the outspoken founder of motor maker Nidec Corp., stepped down in 2017. Fast Retailing Co. CEO Tadashi Yanai, who had been on the board since 2001 and was a rare voice of dissent, left at the end of 2019. On the same day SoftBank announced its record losses this week, Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma announced he would leave the board too, after 13 years. Two new independent directors were nominated — Cadence Design Systems Inc. CEO Lip-Bu Tan and Waseda University professor Yuko Kawamoto.Misra’s fate is ultimately intertwined with the Vision Fund, which Son once declared would be the foundation of a new SoftBank but now risks becoming one of his worst missteps. The fund declared quarter after quarter of profit after its inception in 2017, as it marked up the value of startups and booked paper profits. But since the WeWork fiasco, it has lost all of that money and more. The structure of the fund — Misra’s invention — will create another squeeze. About $40 billion of the money raised from outside investors is in the form of preferred shares that pay about 7% a year. The idea is that SoftBank would see extra profits if the Vision Fund hit it big, but it also means losses are amplified. Venture capital funds typically don’t have such liabilities to avoid the risks of such a volatile business. Misra has been on something of a publicity tour recently to defend his reputation, although he declined to comment for this story. In an interview with CNBC published in March, he said that the Vision Fund’s mistakes are surfacing early and its portfolio will be redeemed in 18 to 24 months. “I’m so, so positive I’ll prove people wrong,” he said. He also vowed he wouldn’t leave the fund. “I owe it to my stakeholders, my LPs, my employees to be here for the journey,” he said. The Vision Fund spokesman denied Misra said the portfolio would recover that quickly. In the end, what SoftBank decides to do about Misra, if anything, depends on Son. His business is under intense pressure, putting even his deepest loyalties to the test. “At a company like SoftBank, where the founder runs the business, that person has to take responsibility for the ethics and the standards for behavior within the company,” said Parissa Haghirian, a professor of international management at Sophia University in Tokyo who specializes in Japanese corporate culture. “If you are not clear about this, then everybody sets their own rules.” For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Vodafone, the world's second-biggest mobile operator, has recruited Jean-Francois Van Boxmeer, the current CEO of brewer Heineken, to succeed Gerard Kleisterlee as chairman from November this year. Van Boxmeer "is a very experienced businessman, with an in-depth knowledge of our geographic regions and he brings very strong sales and customer focus," said Kleisterlee, who has been Vodafone's chairman for nine years.

Facebook and a team of African and global telecom majors have struck a deal to build one of the world's largest subsea cable networks, boosting internet availability across three continents, they said in a joint statement on Thursday. The network will have a design capacity of up to 150 terabytes per second (Tbps) on key parts of the system, the site said. The 11 new cables rolled out between 2009 and 2016 in sub-Saharan Africa provided around 70 Tbps of design capacity.

More than £30 billion in company dividend cuts has left a huge hole in the pockets of U.K. investors in retirement and those who rely on it to top up their monthly income.

Investing in Nokia (NYSE:NOK) is anything but exciting for investors seeking a 5G supplier. The communications equipment supplier is in a long-term bearish phase due to years of overpromising and under-delivering. In the last month, sentiment shifted to favor Nokia stock.Source: RistoH / Shutterstock.com The improved quarterly earnings and news of 5G deployments are lifting Nokia's prospects. Investors have more reasons to hold Nokia and to view it as a strong 5G play. 5G Deals Lift Nokia StockNokia announced the deployment of the first 5G low band in a test environment. Together with Vodafone (NASDAQ:VOD) Hutchison Australia, the firms will roll out their 3.5 GHz 5G. When promoted to a live environment, the VHA network will get better indoor coverage. Customers will also get high-speed 5G connectivity.InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips * 7 Excellent Penny Stocks Ready to Roar If the launch succeeds, Nokia will get positive coverage of its AirScale product. And Nokia Global Services will experience improved bookings for the installation and servicing of the product. Strong First QuarterNokia reported 70 commercial deals and 21 live networks for 5G. For full-year 2020, it forecast non-IFRS earnings of 0.23 EUR a share. The operating margin will improve to 9%. In the near-term, Covid-19 will harm the current second quarter.In the second half of the year, Nokia expects strong seasonality will offset the near-term slowdown. Operationally, the company shifted much of its staff to work from home. This resulted in the company reporting improved productivity. Research and development staff not only met its roadmap schedule but as CEO Rajeev Suri noted, "some key software release are proceeding ahead of schedule."Nokia said that executing in mobile access, or 5G, generating cash, and securing long-term value are its three objectives for 2020. To deliver on profitability in mobile, Nokia will continue to cut costs. So far, its gross margin improvements and 9% target suggest it will exceed this goal. Its ReefShark ("5G PBR") accounted for 17% of its 5G product shipments in the first quarter. Continued R&D efforts on the product should lead to sustained shipment growth through the end of 2022.Nokia posted a 5G win rate of over 100% outside of China. Including China, the win rate is in the mid-90% range. This is an exceptionally strong performance result. Given the competition it faces from Chinese firms, Nokia is poised to grow its market share in 5G. 4G to 5G TransitionNokia ended 2019 with around 27% of the 4G+5G mobile radio market share (excluding China). As it wins more contracts, markets will have to bid Nokia stock at higher valuations. Currently, investors are only willing to pay around 11 times forward earnings.Conversely, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) trades at 14 times forward earnings. Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) also trades at the same valuation. Nokia's sentiment score (based on Stockrover's analytics) rose to 96/100 after the stock bottomed at below $2.30 and built an uptrend from there. The growth score is a modest 79 and will increase as 5G orders grow.Source: Data courtesy of Stock RoverInvestors who forecast revenue growing by at least 1.5% annually, with peak revenue growth of 2.7% in fiscal year 2022 will value Nokia at over $6 a share. In this five-year discounted cash flow model, assume the following revenue growth:(EUR in millions) Input Projections Fiscal Years Ending 19-Dec 20-Dec 21-Dec 22-Dec 23-Dec 24-Dec Revenue 23,315 22,815 23,620 24,252 24,568 24,943 % Growth 3.30% -2.10% 3.50% 2.70% 1.30% 1.50% EBITDA 2,492 2,643 3,120 2,668 2,948 2,993 % of Revenue 10.70% 11.60% 13.20% 11.00% 12.00% 12.00%In the above model, I assume revenue falling slightly due to the lockdown disrupting the business in the first half of this year. Orders pick up above 2019 levels the following year as customer business recovers and network upgrades accelerate.In the short term, Nokia has too few stories to share to lift the stock. Conversely, in the long term, the company has tremendous upside potential and will reward investors betting on its growth in 5G. As markets look beyond its Q2 results, the stock may re-visit its $5 range later this year.Chris Lau, contributing author for InvestorPlace.com and numerous other financial sites. Chris has over 20 years of investing experience in the stock market and runs the Do-It-Yourself Value Investing Marketplace on Seeking Alpha. He shares his stock picks so readers get original insight that helps improve investment returns. Disclosure: the author owns shares of Nokia. I discuss Nokia's 5G growth prospects in my private community on the DIY Value investing marketplace. More From InvestorPlace * Top Stock Picker Reveals His Next 1,000% Winner * America's Richest ZIP Code Holds Shocking Secret * 1 Under-the-Radar 5G Stock to Buy Now * The 1 Stock All Retirees Must Own The post Why Nokia Is a Strong 5G Play appeared first on InvestorPlace.