I wonder if a 15–17x P/E is still the right price for a company whose revenue isn’t growing, but whose debt might start increasing largely due to a principled promise to raise dividend payouts. CapEx isn’t optional in this telecom landscape either, but completely mandatory stuff just to even achieve flat revenue and a nominal earnings improvement through cost savings. There really isn’t any organic growth.
Elisa is still priced as a quality company from which steady earnings growth is expected. For the past four years, however, it has mostly been a bond whose coupon is partly funded by debt. Fortunately, they managed to work Nvidia into the release—that’s a welcome change of pace after numerous bad customer experience stories. But it’s a worrying trend nonetheless.