Taking advantage of Vantage If Vodafone want to take advantage of tower valuations they still have work to do - whilst the incremental detail was helpful, unveiling it alongside a profit downgrade (more on that below) for the unit was certainly not. Meanwhile, in our view, their focus needs to be on articulating their tower growth strategy more clearly; details or even an outline on small cells, organic growth, fibre to the site, build to suit potential were all distinctly lacking from the slides and QandA responses. A coherent story here will be key to creating a credible tower investment story. To be fair it remains a work in progress we suspect there is a decent growth story within Vantage; once this emerges the focus on ''T0'' financials will quickly shift to the longer term growth potential, in our view. What do we know today that we didn''t on Thursday? Vodafone''s recent update brought a slightly better than feared revenue decline, but expectations of a further deterioration next quarter and a lower than previously disclosed tower EBITDA perimeter were in focus. Vodafone''s fledgling tower business has a name - Vantage towers. Vodafone''s experience so far with COVID impacts is broadly in line with their expectations/guidance. Has the investment case changed? Not really As Vodafone approaches (another) nadir in service revenue trends (calendar 3Q contains a large proportion of roaming) the ''COVID comps'' mean things will naturally become easier into next year, although there does remain some uncertainty over the pace of the recovery as government support measures begin to ease. In our view strong focus on cost control and a conservative set of assumptions for EBITDA/FCF guidance mean Vodafone has scope to surprise in the next 6-12 months, and on that time horizon the current price represents a decent entry point given the margin of error that the current valuation allows. That said trends will get worse first and we still have spectrum...