Forum Topics TUA TUA #Bull Case

Pinned straw:

Added 2 years ago

David Teoh is a proven performer and my understanding is he now has his original TPG team in TUA.

He left TPG post merger with Vodafone due to differences of opinion for moving forward as I understand.

I suggest that David leading his Team would provide a favourable future for TUA as was the case with TPG.

David is a proven success and I'm not aware of anything that would suggest otherwise.

Rocket6
Added 5 months ago

As I have matured as an investor, I have increasingly come to think that telco businesses are only ever as good as their CEO. This is ultimately my thesis for ABB (I am a massive admirer of Phil Britt). Funnily enough, I hold a similar view of David Teoh -- his TPG exit was enough for me to remove it from the wishlist altogether and not look back. He was the basis for any interest I had in that business.

That said, I was intrigued when he popped up at Tuas, but I just didn't feel confident enough that I knew enough about the local market, despite David at the helm. That would have been a nice 400% investment win to date....doh!

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Bear77
Added 5 months ago

Agreed @RodRocket , Tuas is a growth play with Teoh running it, and particularly if he has his old team back together. I would NOT touch TPG without David Teoh. I sold out of TPG on the day he announced he was leaving - with immediate effect. TPG is not what it was, and the management is now completely different. You basically have the old Vodafone management running TPG now and they didn't do very well with Vodafone, so not a quality Telco these days in my view. Tuas however shows a lot of promise.

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RhinoInvestor
Added 5 months ago

@Bear77 I’ve been a long time TPG shareholder. When I used to work selling networking gear to the largest Telco’s around APJC I really enjoyed working with them and going for meetings at their scruffy offices over in Glebe. They were very pragmatic and quite quick to assess whether something could work in their context (and run on the smell of an oily rag).

At the time they spun off in 2020 I dumped my small Tuas allocation at around 74c (could have been a 6x if I’d hung on). My thesis for divestment was that they weren't going to stand a chance against Singtel in its home market. However, they look to have found a niche as a budget player … I noted that their monthly ARPU was still under $10. I’m guessing their subscriber base is probably foreign domestic workers etc. rather than Singaporeans.

My thesis for sticking with TPG was that they would roll over Singtel (Optus) in Australia (especially as NBNCo rolled out and they acquired a mobile network from Vodafone). In spite of Optus’ attempts to ruin their reputation it still hasn’t done anything for the share price of TPG. I tend to agree with you that the loss of the Teoh TPG management magic has been to their detriment. Stepping back, I think most of the broadband value I expected TPG would capture has probably been taken by Aussie Broadband.

… Oh well

DISC: Hold TPG and ABB IRL

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