At a loss about boss

More than £800 million was wiped off BT’s value yesterday after it named its new boss.

Philip Jansen, co-head of payments firm Worldpay, will replace Gavin Patterson at a crunch time for the telecoms giant.

Patterson had been put under pressure by an accounting scandal in Italy, BT’s pension deficit and calls to sell wholesale broadband arm Openreach.

BT’s shares, already down 13% in the year to date, fell 3.9% yesterday, but had risen 4.5% on Wednesday.