Telecoms valuations look attractive after lean years

After more than two years of declines, European fund managers say that select telecommunications stocks now look attractive. A key reason for the positive outlook is that the prolonged sector falls have led to attractive valuations even when taking companies' debts into account. The Bloomberg European Telecoms index, for example, has fallen by around 80% in euro terms since the peak on 3 March 2000. Alister Hibbert, manager of the Invesco Perpetual European Growth fund is marginally underweight telecoms. He says while the sector is sound, with valuations fair to marginally cheap, bette...