A report has claimed that BT will reach a decision regarding the
break-up of the telecommunication carrier Concert Communications,
the company's joint venture with AT&T, within the next few
weeks.
According to the Financial Times, BT chairman, Sir Christopher
Bland, is reportedly determined to resolve the issue prior to the
company finalising its plans for the spin-off of its wireless
division. BT is expected to present its wireless plans to
shareholders and analysts in early September.
Gerard Bithell, a spokesman for BT, said, "We are holding a
shareholder meeting on 5 September to discuss our plans and present
our prospectus for the demerger of BT Wireless. As for Concert, no
time lines have been published for any plans. We are discussing
[with AT&T] all possibilities for Concert, but I cannot comment
on any details."
When asked about the prospect of dissolving Concert last month, a
BT spokeswoman said, "the operational difficulties would mostly
have to do with customers, as we would want to retain them. But I
couldn't really say much more about what the difficulties would be
as it would just be hypothetical at this point."
Concert currently has approximately 7,000 employees and turns over
about $7bn (£4.9bn) in annual revenue. In April, AT&T said in
its report for the first quarter of 2001 that Concert had lost
$122m due to lower revenue, higher network costs and bad debt. Some
reports have estimated that Concert is currently losing £20m each
week.
In a recent internal accounting exercise, BT valued its 50% stake
in Concert at £1.4bn.