My thoughts on Telstra:
Telstra's service is cr*p and theyre sitting on an ageing copper network that's so decrepid its a timebomb waiting to go off. Broadband takeup in Australia is the third lowest in the world..simply because Telstra just hasnt bothered to spend the money to keep up with new technologies...the money has been diverted to the shareholders as healthy dividends to keep the share price bolstered up.
Under the leadership of Ziggy the poor state of the copper network and other issues got constantly swept under the carpet. Sol Trujillo has come on board only to find he's in charge of a company in a very poor state of health...possibly terminally ill.
Telstras share price has only stayed where it is because of its high dvidend yield....that cannot last and as soon as the yield starts dropping a large percentage of share holders like myself will be dumping the stock. That doesnt add up to a happy situation for the government as it tries to offload its remaining stake in the company.
Moving the governments shares into a future fund and releasing them over a period of time is only going to put off the inevitable...the government just isnt going to get the price it thought it would get for their shares and the company has a serious uphill fight looming against some serious competition.