Europa are delighted to link with I3E and look forward to early September Serenity appraisal spud. Watch the full video here.
Ianfm. I don’t think you are correct that BT covers the cost of the shares at maturity, only the discount of 10% or 20% on the purchase price on the start date. They hold a total number of shares on behalf of the scheme until maturity when they are released to the members if they want them or there money back plus a bonus payment. Example price is on start date 100p BT offer them at 80p for 5 years when the price is let’s say 500p the bit BT cover is the discount from 80-100. I believe they get some incentive from HMRC for this.
Just a few personal thoughts on industrial action. Employees have a legal right to take part in action if all the rules around it are followed. From a personal point, I was involved in the action back in 1987, at the time I was in my 20s. I did not spend any time on the picket line, like many of my coworkers we let the union do there thing talking to BT. That said there were some youngsters on the line, but not many, most were older, could be something to do with the young having other things to do. Those who talk about, that was the terms you accepted when taking the job, well what about the BT employees who accepted the terms of the BTPS only for the company to keep making changes in the 2000s and eventually closing it and moving staff into a new scheme with worsening benefits. Another thing to consider is those who are not members of a union, in this case CWU. They have had over 30 years accepting pay rises ,improvement in hours and many other benefits that the union engaged with BT to bring about. Those staff members have received the same gains for no effort, it could be said, they sat back and let someone else do the work for them. I sometimes wonder it they would have benefited as well if they had to do there own individual negotiations with BT. I have said several times over the last month or so that I hope BT and the CWU can get round the table and come to a compromise that is acceptable to all. Just a few things to think about…
Erik. “ I believe and they also own the pension fund if it goes belly up so there’s a bit to think about. “. FYI the government dose not have any ownership of the BTPS, that is sections A,B,C, it is owned by the pensioners and the trustees along with commitments from BT to fund going forward, IR when the last pensioner is no more the fund will be wound up. The government involvement comes from a court case several years ago, the ruling of which is that, if BT should go bust and the scheme is unable to fund its commitment to its members, the government will pay the pensions. It is called, a Crown grantee. That is the only responsibility any UK government has to the BTPS. Hope this clarifies a wide held misconception…
We have, Trooli, in our neck of the woods, and the thing is. We moved nearly 18 months ago a distance of about 10 miles. Before we moved, around 6 months before, Trooli, started installing fibre around our old address using BT polls and holes. The tails can be seen on poles coiled up waiting to go. A couple of months after we moved, they started running fibre around our new location, using the same BT polls and holes, I have a coil of 10 fibres on the pole outside our house, been there about a year now, unused. Today I did a check to see if service is ready, at the old and new addresses. Guess what, service not available, please register your interest and we will let you know when we can offer you service. So in over 2 years of building a new network they are still not able to offer services !!!
Good luck with your target of 2026 to cover another 5-7 million homes VMO2, and that’s without any new additional fibre even ordered from the factory…
All the hot air over the last few days has really put, the wind beneath your wings, Aus. You have managed to pick fights with anybody over many subjects. Your insight is truly vast, I really am impressed. You go get em sun…
The only problem with TUPE is, you only have your rights guaranteed on day one. After that the new employer could turn round and say, we are not able to continue with the rights you have, these are the new ones, take it or leave it. Chances are the new company would have to recognise any existing union for the employees, which they probably would not want to. For TUPE to be accepted by any existing union the chances are BT would need to offer a redundancy package for staff who did not want to move to the new employer. BT did try this sort of thing in the past, in the end they backed off as they realised that at the end of the day it would not benefit the company in the long run. Forget the current situation for a moment, in a few years BT will not need the staff numbers it currently has in Openreach. Once FTTP is done the head count will reduce dramatically. Fibre just sits there transporting services, it’s not affected by weather or corrosion, the kit on the ends just dose it’s job year after year with no problems. Then you could look at using contract staff to run the network day to day. The dead wood, are people with more knowledge of telecoms and networks than you may give them credit for…
I see this as a disruptive story to see how the market might respond to a deal between the two. Talk Talk is singed up to Equinox, with discounts for reaching new FTTP connection targets through to early 2030s. So VM would be purchasing an ISP that uses BT for its services to end users and will do for years to come, especially considering Equinox discounts. Until VM had enough UK coverage in there own network to pull out of Equinox and move TT customers onto VM fibre, they would be putting a lot of there TT earnings straight into BTs pocket. It will probably take until late 2020s for them to build a full UK network, which at present they are looking for cash to do. It would make better sense to try a take over in 6-7 years time but not now, with high debt and even more to come to build there network. As an aside, it’s about a month away from dividend holding date, force a sudden price drop now to get shares cheap that will be at least 10p higher than today after taking the dividend, especially as nearly 60m were bought yesterday according to this site, umm…
Rod. Perhaps it’s time to rain it in a bit, eh. Your grip on the real world is slipping away faster day by day. Just look at your last two heroes. Gavin Patterson, aka, golden locks,kicked out of his job by the share holders because he was useless. The second Boris, again eventually found out and kicked out of his job by the members. Looks like you keep backing the wrong people, perhaps hence your warped view of the world. Empathy lessons may do you some good…
“ Perhaps bt should look at the future and use solely contract companies no unions involved ”.
Well that’s one way to win a race to the bottom, ending with a network in such a mess it would take years to resolve even with direct labour employed to resolve the issues contractors would likely cause. Not to mention what impact that situation would have on the share price. Unions are not all about industry action and arguments with management, they are about cooperating and improving a company for the good of all. How about we send children up chimneys to clean them again…
“ those call centres better watch out...Artificial Intelligence is gonna replace you, the more expensive and fussy you get ... AI doesn't get flu or COVID either ! “
There was a program on TV last night, 5 I think, AI is not all it seems to be, it’s easy to confuse so it puts you through to a REAL person quicker. AI is used on online chat and phone to assist in call directing and in the end sends around 90% of contact to a real person to resolve the issue.
How is AI going to help ? with nobody to take the call. It’s just a filter and buffer to eventually pass on to a real person…
Have never worked in a call center so, don’t know. Engineering, well, every day a vehicle check, risk assessment on every job, taking breaks when they should be taken, lots of little things that people should do all the time but in the real world that dose not happen. It can be very easy to become stuck in traffic , not be able to respond to a phone call instantly, replenishment of stores when you should instead of when you can. Many other little things that can add up to delays or jobs not getting done that day. Let’s be honest, we can all make things difficult in a situation if we feel we need to , to benefit our personal position in life. You know as well as I do that we don’t follow every rule all the time in the workplace. Hopefully it will see a deal sooner rather than later…
Fleccy. Just experience really. Having lived through several battles between BT and the CWU some of which have come very close to getting out of hand, in the end a settlement was reached. I don’t know how the ballot was worded but in the past it has been, up to and including strike action, if so then other things may be implemented by the CWU before strike action, work to rule etc, believe me just that can cause major issues. I honestly hope and believe that there will not be a strike, even if there is, I would hope it is short lived…