BT profi ts dented by cost of televised sport
BT SHARES reverse charged to their lowest level for nearly five years as a weak performance at its international division and higher costs for sports rights and pensions dented quarterly profi ts.
The telecoms giant, seeking to rebuild its fortunes after an accounting scandal in Italy earlier this year wiped billions of pounds from its market value, said pretax earnings at its troubled global services business fell 39 per cent to £ 81million on 10 per cent lower revenue of £ 1.26billion, despite a boost from a weaker pound.
Thousands of jobs are being axed as global services, which provide network and IT infrastructure support to multinationals around the world, are overhauled to become a more focused digital business.
BT chief executive Gavin Patterson said “robust action” was being taken to tackle the division’s underperformance, which took the shine off “encouraging results” at its consumer operations, notably its EE mobile phone network whose £ 12.5billion takeover was completed last year. Group adjusted pre- tax earnings dipped 4 per cent to £ 1.81billion on 1 per cent lower revenue of £ 5.95billion.
BT’s television service, built on English Premier League and European Champions League football coverage, scored a 7,000 increase in customers, although this was down from 63,000 a year ago.
It forked out £ 1.2billion last March to retain Champions League rights until 2021. Its current three- year Premier League deal costs £ 960million. Average viewing fi gures for BT Sport grew 8 per cent.
EE revenue rose 4 per cent to £ 1.33billion as it added 279,000 contract mobile customers for a total of 17.3 million.
Patterson said: “Our fi rst- half results are in line with our expectations and we are maintaining our outlook for the year.
“While there are near- term challenges, our largest business units are performing to plan and generating cash for reinvestment and shareholder returns.”
Shares fell 7p to 253 ½ p.