Why is the Vodafone share price below 70p when I think it should be 87% higher?

The Vodafone (LSE:VOD) share price appears to be stuck. The last time it was above 75p was in November 2023. Since May 2019, it’s fallen by 44%. The decline is due to stagnant revenues and falling earnings. But against this disappointing backdrop, here’s why I still believe the company is hugely undervalued. To try and improve its return on capital employed (ROCE), Vodafone has been exiting various markets. It’s already sold its interests in Ghana and Hungary. And it disposed of its share of Vantage Towers, a European infrastructure business. And more recently, it’s successfully negotiated deals to offload its Spanish and Italian divisions. To help investors understand the implications, the company has reissued its results for the year ended 31 March 2023 (FY23) and six months ended 30 September 2023 (H1 24), excluding these discontinued operations. They show EBITDAaL (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, after leases) of €12.4bn in FY23, and €5.4bn, for H1 24. Vodafone isn’t a seasonal business so I’m going to double its H1 24 result to assume earnings for FY24 of €10.8bn. To come up with a possible valuation it’s necessary to apply a multiple to this estimate of earnings. The best way...

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