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Always unlikely until they happen.

The thing is Fleccy it’s not important that it’s rubbish factually if it’s only there to suggest there’s nothing wrong with a foreign takeover.

Understand your argument about UK assets but successive governments haven’t treated it like one so what incentive is there for the board not to put shareholders first and get some value back into the company. Being a UK asset should be beneficial not a huge weight to carry that just stops the company being successful.

If it hadn’t been under the interference it’s received it may well have been a roaring success and be further along with broadband and actually making more money and keeping the alt nets at a distance rather than helping them out.

BT doesn’t owe OFCOM or the government a thing.

Spectator article, Perhaps a plant to start a more accepting dialogue on the prospect of a foreign takeover of BT?

Let’s hope so.

One thing is sure, if there is a bid it will be for as little as the bidder thinks they can get away with. It’s ironic that if a bid is to be based on the current price plus a magic number then the very organisations that have been playing trading games with the stock for years will be offered a price that under values their investment…..hoist by their own petard! if it didn’t also hurt me it would be funny.

I think that DT would need to lead rather than Drahi as the “don’t sell the UK Crown Jewels “brigade who have stood by and watched BT being ground down by OFCOM and the city would have a field day if a known debt junkie led the bid.

As the UK is trying to rebuild relations with the EU it would be more difficult to forbid the sale when the bidder is a leading company from the leading EU economy.

I think a price between £2.50 and £3.50 would be likely with DT and Drahi coming to some quiet agreement for Drahi to share the extra benefit he has gained by accumulating his stake at a much lower price than DT.

I suspect this is another false dawn but I hope not.

If nothing else it may encourage those that interfere with BT to back off and let the new CEO maximise the opportunity that Jansen has set up.

Not in Europe? what does that mean? BT Have offices and at least a couple of thousand staff in Europe.

Or he’s leaving because he doesn’t have confidence that his own strategy is going to pay off and make his options worth staying for.

This isn’t going to add to the market’s confidence in BT.

I’m not a subscriber either.If you Google the first three words “BT is undoubtedly” then click the link you get past the paywall.

Another more comprehensive and I thought balanced view:

https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/education/2023/07/05/bt-is-undoubtedly-cheap-but-are-there-too-many-risks/

Hi Fleccy,

Yes what you say is true about cost savings. The reason I think they should be selling assets to pay down debt, cover off pension liabilities and fund further investments, if needed, is down to a demonstrable lack of confidence in the markets.

However well thought through we may think their plan is the wild movements in the share price wouldn't be happening if the big players in the investment community had real confidence that the plan will lead to rich rewards. Markets are forward looking and some of the payoffs you describe are not that far away.

UBS sends out a negative update and the share price drops at one stage by so much the market cap went down almost a billion pounds, that movement wasn't just caused by UBS investors and i think the stock is viewed as just a trading stock where institutions can make margins on swaying the price whenever they need using the latest OFCOM or media or analyst utterance as support. If there was real confidence that Jansen's Plans will really come through there would be less trading and more holding.

That’s a good question Blue,

My answer is:

Jansen took over February 2019. Share Price 231 p

Crozier took over December 2021 Share Price 169 p

Share price today. 122 p

Both have responsibility to increase the value of the value of the company and lead the Board to that success.

Doesn’t seem to be working out very well when they are left to their own devices so I think they need some pressure from their major shareholders as they clearly don’t give a monkeys about rewarding retail investors.

200 p only comes in next couple of years if DT/Drahi push the board into taking action to drive value out of BT.

Can’t see that one of these has happened before in the past couple years.

Probably bad funding news………..Test match probably a better bet.

Can't find anything on line.

Is This expected to be a bad news briefing or is it a normal planned event?

If it's bad news it may explain the drop in the past couple of weeks...............and also raise questions why institutions learned early enough to sell.

I think that’s regurgitated old news from a couple of months back. I believe it’s come up because OFCOM has recently updated the report on monitoring what they call incidents. Throw mud enough times and it sticks….lazy journalism

I guess there’s no way of knowing what’s possible regarding a sale of parts of BT until it’s attempted.

Whilst I agree with much your sentiment on this Fleccy I think Crozier and Jansen have been in place long enough that they should be delivering increased shareholder value rather than the continual declines we see.

I say this as someone convinced BT is vastly undervalued but wishing it will improve isn’t working.

Whilst Jansen talks a very good game about recovery the market clearly has little confidence in what he and the Board are doing.

The share price gets blown about by anything and everything that can remotely connected to BT however tenuous that connection is.

This week’s brief loss of a billion pounds of market capitalisation just because of a single analyst briefing note just illustrates how weak BT is seen to be.

Whilst the Government and regulator are vocal on how important BT is to the UK their behaviour is a part of the problem as it adds so much uncertainty. The likelihood of a Labour government just adds to that uncertainty.

I think the time has come for another strategy to increase shareholder value and that is to break up the company as has been discussed here.

The security sensitive areas and enough critical mass to support them can be left but that leaves large areas of opportunity to sell off much of the present company.

September seems a bit quick but even announcing a divestment plan to take effect in the next two years would very likely transform the markets view of BT.

The sooner it’s done the better.

Agree,I’ve had this share a few years and its movement appears to have little correlation to events positive or negative. For me it’s a conviction hold as the potential coupled with it’s central position in the uk infrastructure and the size of the DT and Drahi combined add up to more value.Sum of the parts would add up to three times the present market cap. One day I hope for a positive surprise but in the meantime maybe fleccy has a point

Aus, that’s a very good point.

I’d say it supports my earlier post.

I think that it illustrates the fact that reducing the pool of available shares doesn’t necessarily increase the price.

Not sure the evidence is there that buybacks increase share price. As an example Shell have spent billions on buyback programmes and their price is down from 2018.

If cash is available I’d go for fifty fifty Investment in new ventures and increased dividends.

Both would make more difference to the share price in my view.

Ironic that BT fund gets slated for not investing in UK equities when BT’s price performance relative to similar companies in other markets just demonstrates why putting its money elsewhere will pay better returns.

Amazon are talking to Verizon and Dish who have no consumer business in UK. they are also talking to T Mobile 53% owned by DT who are of course well connected with a consumer mobile provider in the UK.

Perhaps less of a threat than it looks.