BT shares rallied on Monday following a report the company will this week assert that its cost-cutting programme is ahead of schedule, as it prepares to make thousands more redundancies and bolsters its defences against a potential bid by French billionaire and Altice owner Patrick Drahi.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, the telecoms company is expected to hail the progress of its modernisation programme on Thursday, alongside its third-quarter update.
The Telegraph cited City sources as saying that chief executive Philip Jansen will announce that a target of £1bn in savings by March 2023 will be met at least a year early. It was understood that the BT board was this weekend grappling with whether to announce new targets immediately or to wait until after Drahi is allowed to launch a takeover in December.
At 0900 GMT, the shares were up 3.2% at 143.40p.
Last week, Sky News reported that BT had moved to strengthen its defences against a possible takeover bid by Drahi by hiring advisory firm Robey Warshaw.
Sky said the advisory firm had been formally appointed by BT in recent weeks to work alongside Goldman Sachs. The move comes shortly before a 10 December threshold that will release Altice from a binding commitment not to launch a takeover bid for BT.
Altice bought a 12% stake in BT in June for £2.2bn.
Sky cited city sources as saying that BT’s board is engaged in a range of scenario planning exercises including Altice lodging a formal takeover offer or demanding that it spins off either its consumer division, which includes mobile network EE, or its Openreach broadband infrastructure arm.
