BT to decide Concert's fate
- Posted:
- 13:41 15 Aug 2001
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."
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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.
