Member Info for Terraplane

Where is this form? It isn't on the swiss tax page.
It would be easier if you just posted links.

I think this paragraph tells you all you need to know:

"The primary uncertainty with BP is how much longer the company will survive the strategy of selling higher-quality assets and plowing the proceeds into politically correct but economically suicidal projects. As long as the management keeps inflicting injuries on the company, risk will continue to overwhelm potential rewards."

He steps down from Asos and Sony but not Whitbreads or Kantar. I do hope he's not going to be a part time chairman paid full time money. £700,000 is a lot for two days a week.
On other matters, he's been appointed chairman, a largely superficial role in the day-to-day running of the business. I would like to think that he will stay firmly in the boardroom,where he belongs, and leaves the operation of the company to the CEO and his senior executive team, because that's what they get paid for. It is not his job to run the company, only the board. Let's hope he remembers that.

As long as he doesn't try to get in the way of what Jansen wants to do and as long as he just chairs the board meetings and keeps his fingers out of the day-to-day business. The last thing BT needs now is another conflict at the top.

£3.09 Bugerov
£3.12 Terraplane
£3.15 rjb92
£3.19 ShareNinja
£3.23 NSS

£3.12 Terraplane

21cn was originally conceived to replace the pstn network and migrate voice and data onto. It was only later that VOIP became a viable proposition for BT. The equipment supplied by Huawei and Fujitsu was installed in a trial at Swansea to migrate customer pstn voice onto but it was a failure. Only 6 pstn lines were ever made functional and the trial was quietly scrapped. Telecoms was a very different beast twenty years ago, pstn was still the biggest money maker for BT. As for a pstn voice event horizon in 2025 and millions of dead telephones, I don't think that's a winning strategy.

The short answer is no.
When BT sold the buildings to Telereal the company was in dire financial straits and there was no 30 year plan. The deal with Telereal was done as part of the cost reduction plan to cut the £30 billion debt BT had built up due to Peter Bonfield and Iain Vallance who had embarked on a massive expansion program in which they bought stakes in useless companies and then spent far too much in Gordon Brown's auction for wireless spectrum in 1999. In 2001 we had just embarked on planning the so-called 21cn network which was supposed to replace the system X and axe 10 kit. At this time there was no thought about migrating to an IP network or FTTP. Fibre was only being used in the high-level network layer. The 21cn solution never worked because the equipment from Huawei and Fujitsu was not completely compatible and didn't work as a viable system to migrate voice and data. So 20 years later and BT still have the problem of replacing pstn to resolve and they are running out of both time and space it seems.

If the situation in Israel escalates into a full blown war - which is quite possible - then the markets will dive even further. Conflict in the middle east always has repercussions. But don't just take my word for it, do some research. Israel being on a green list has nothing to do with it.

Israel.

When Christopher Bland came in as chair just after the crash in 2001 he invested £1 million of his own money in BT shares @ 514p to show that believed in the company. He lost a substantial amount of dosh. CEOs and chairs are not always the best judges.

The best of your knowledge is a little limited I'm afraid.
https://www.bt.com/about/bt/our-company/group-businesses/networks
Have a read.
The value of Openreach is predicated on the revenue from the services provided, rather than on what they own.

BT Network owns the infrastructure. They design, install/remove and maintain every bit of network and transmission kit. Openreach don't own anything except the staff and the vans. They install cables and fibre but not the actual electronics that sit in exchanges. They are a service provider the same as TalkTalk or Sky.

ADHB - BT bought back millions of shares and look where that got them and the shareholders. The SP has spent years on life-support and the dividend has been stopped. Money spent on buybacks is money spent on fresh air. It generally produces zero value for the shareholders.

I agree. Just topped up again so a nice stash at an average of 2.42. This share is a cash cow and will explode when airlines get going again. Patience is the watchword for us long termers. Oil will still be a major energy source for at least 20 years. GLA.

If it retreats below 3.00 then it's time to top up again. Long term oil prospects are rock solid, it's all about patience. Just take the divis and wait.

I think he jumped before he was pushed. Another highly remunerated failure whose single useful act was getting rid of gorgeous Gavin. Other than that his tenure at BT has been largely the same as his predecessors, none of whom have done anything to add value to the company or the share price. When you look at the BOD at BT it doesn't fill one with confidence this is a company that knows where it is going and how it will get there. What I see is a floundering company that staggers from one crisis to another led by a disparate bunch of people who have been riding on the executive director gravy train for years. Jansen hasn't been up to much so far, maybe he should leave the table too. This is the BT BOD strapline; "The Board is responsible for the Group’s strategy and for overseeing the Group’s performance. The Board’s focus is on: strategy; development; growing shareholder value; oversight and control; and corporate governance."
In which case the entire board should step down because they failed on all points.

Dumping Jansen is a good idea. The man has no ideas and no drive. Another bloody bean counter running a tech company, what could possibly go wrong?

"Openreach is just the workforce".
Indeed it is. So why does BT need it?
In short, BT doesn't need Openreach and it would be better for both shareholders and customers if Openreach were sold. The network is where the cash is generated and the network is the property of BT Group. So sell Openreach and get rid a liability that only brings grief by way of its pathetic performance and customer service. Openreach cannot speak to customers directly, they can only communicate with the service providers, so whenever there's an Open reach problem, that problem becomes BT Group's problem and the general public direct their bile towards BT. Bad publicity is bad for business.
FTTP is not going to replace copper until 2040-50, if at all. Openreach say the copper network is going to start being shut down after the end of 2025. What they don't say is how long it will take to provide FTTP to everyone. That's because they have no idea. FTTP to all is an impossible task within 20 years, let alone 10.
I know all about the long term planning for closing down the legacy network, I was one of those people planning it.
Negativity towards BT won't change until BT changes and that is what we all want to see.

NDNIC00, I agree with you for the most part. Tier 3 managers and upwards were mostly hopeless chancers who only had their own survival at heart. This is the nature of some large companies, probably because of the way their reward packages are structured towards targets, targets, targets. This is a failed system in my view but others may disagree. Regardless of the useless managers the top team have a responsibility to keep their eye on everything, it's why they are paid eye-watering salaries. When things go wrong they should know why, what and how. Hand wringing excuses along the lines of "nobody told me!" do not wash. In exchange for several million pounds and benefits I expect the top team to take responsibility, own the problem and sort it out. If a tier 5 manager is getting in the way of hiding stuff, off with his head and out the door. Same as the CEO. Corporate failure is endemic in some big companies - certainly in BT - and it is a failure that not only costs huge sums of money but is rewarded instead of being punished.