Topic: How To Invest

Hi Pat: What are your thoughts on Telefonica SA? It’s trading at about 10 times earnings and has a high yield. Thanks.

Article Excerpt

Telefonica SA (ADR), $23.48, symbol TEF on New York (ADRs outstanding: 4.5 billion; Market cap: $106 billion; www.telefonica.com), provides a range of telecommunications services, including telephone, mobile, Internet, data and entertainment. Telefonica mainly operates in Spain, Portugal, and a number of Latin American countries. The company has 41.4 million traditional telephone customers, 220.2 million wireless subscribers, 18.6 million Internet users and 2.8 million pay-TV subscribers. Telefonica’s growing operations in Latin America have helped offset weakness in Spain and Europe. A weaker euro is also enhancing the contribution of its Latin American operations. Telefonica now aims to cut staff and costs in Spain, and increase its investments in Latin America, particularly Brazil. The company now gets 43% of its sales from Latin America, followed by Spain (31%) and the rest of Europe (26%). Telefonica has also expanded its alliance with China Unicom, the second-largest wireless carrier in China. In October 2009, the companies each bought $1 billion of each other’s stock. In January…