Pensions blow for BT
Massive bill, but boost for women
BT says it could be forced to pay “hundreds of millions of pounds” to boost pensions for female staff.
The telecoms giant is among thousands of firms affected by a landmark High Court ruling last week.
Lloyds Banking Group was ordered to equalise pension payments for men and women at a cost of up to £150million.
The case was about guaranteed minimum pensions for employees who contracted out of state pensions.
BT has begun talks with pension trustees to estimate the possible cost. But in results out yesterday, it said: “We estimate this could be in the hundreds of millions of pounds”.
BT’s pension deficit stood at £4.5billion at the end of September. The firm’s outgoing boss Gavin Patterson has insisted he has no regrets about leaving, despite signs that a turnaround is beginning to work. Profits jumped 24% to £1.3bn in the six months to the end of September, despite revenues dipping 2% to £11.6bn.
Patterson, who leaves in February after shareholder pressure, said: “I wanted to hand the business over with positive momentum.”
Viewing figures for BT Sport’s UEFA Champions League group stage matches are up 46% on last year. September also saw the company’s first pay-per-view event, with boxer Canelo Alvarez’s victory over Gennady Golovkin.
But an overhaul of the business saw 2,000 staff axed in the past six months, with a target of 13,000 redundancies over the next three years. Patterson said there was no plan to split BT’s wholesale broadband arm, Openreach, into a new company.
But that decision will fall to new boss Philip Jansen, who begins on January 1. BT’s share price jumped 8% yesterday despite an expected lower interim dividend of 4.62p a share, totalling £458m.