Ofcom unlikely to recommend demerger of BT's Openreach, says Charles Stanley

(ShareCast News) - Charles Stanley maintained its 'accumulate' rating on BT, saying it does not expect UK regulator Ofcom to recommend the demerger of Openreach.On Thursday, Ofcom suggested breaking up BT Group as one of a range of possible measures to improve competitiveness in the digital communications market.It said that separating Openreach, BT's infrastructure division, which owns the physical network used by several competitors, from the main group "could deliver competition or wider benefits for end users" and "would remove BT's underlying incentive to discriminate against competitors".However, Charles Stanley said: "We think that Ofcom will settle for further 'remedies', despite its view that BT still has 'an incentive' to discriminate. ""For Ofcom itself, a decision leading to failure would have major consequences for itself and perhaps even for the structure of regulation in other industries, while maintaining the status quo (with further remedies) on the back of a formal review looks to be a low risk option. In our view then, the latter is the most likely outcome and that is why BT's share price has not fallen on the recent news - indeed, has risen marginally."The brokerage said the investment theme for BT is that it is slowly moving to growth in revenues after years of decline, as higher quality new products and services take over from old voice revenues and regulatory price cuts ease.Meanwhile, operating costs continue to be cut, with opportunities for yet further reductions, and the business is managed for cash, said Charles Stanley.The net result has been dividend growth of 80% over the last five years and maintained 10-15% guidance for next year."We see the £12.5bn acquisition of EE as likely to complete and positive," said the brokerage, adding that although competition is likely to intensify, BT will have a very strong converged offering.It said the stock's valuation is pretty full but the shares "remain attractive in an uncertain world".At 12:35, BT shares were up 0.7% at 475.40p.