If Bt has bought back 2million 5 thousand shares to day. How come it shows on trades as a sell?

BT aims to shut down traditional phone network to help it battle US tech giants

StockMarketWire.com
BT Group's adjusted pre-tax profits rose by 9% to £694m in the first quarter to the end of June. On a reported basis, pre-tax profits were up 16% at £632m.

Revenues were 2% down at £4,278m but EBITDA increased by 1% to £1,449m and adjusted earnings per share rose by 3% to 6.7p.

Chief executive Gavin Patterson said:"This is an exciting time at BT. We continue to invest heavily in our superfast fibre broadband network. It now reaches around 80% of all UK premises and we will work with government to help take fibre broadband to 95% of the country by the end of 2017. Our technical trials of ultrafast broadband using G.fast are progressing well; we're on target to start large-scale customer trials this summer.

Our mobile plans have got off to a good start with more than 100,000 consumer mobile customers signed up in the first three months. We're also looking forward to completing our acquisition of EE, which will allow us to create a true UK digital champion, providing customers with greater choice and value and helping to deliver the UK's connected future.

We're launching BT Sport Europe in the next few days, the new home of UEFA Champions League football, which is free for our BT TV customers. We are also leading the way on Ultra HD TV. Our BT Sport Ultra HD channel will be the first live sports channel in Europe offering picture quality four times that of normal high definition.

We have also invested further in improving customer service and Openreach is running ahead of all 60 minimum service levels set by Ofcom for this year. And we are engaging with Ofcom as part of its Strategic Review of Digital Communications which offers scope for deregulation and the potential to create a more level playing field in pay-TV.

The investments we are making in our business and customer service are building a strong platform for growth. And our financial results show we're on track to achieve our outlook for the full year."

StockMarketWire.com
BT chief executive Gavin Patterson has unveiled the company's ambition to deliver Britain's digital future, cementing the nation's future prosperity as the G20's leading digital economy.

According to Ofcom, 90% of UK premises can already access fibre broadband, putting the UK top of the EU's largest countries, according to Ofcom.

Speaking at BT's Delivering Britain's Digital Future conference in London, Patterson announced pledges designed to go further and:

· tackle slow speeds in hard-to-reach parts of the country;

· achieve a step-change in speeds overall, with ultrafast rollout starting next year;

· improve customer service, through a number of commitments unveiled by Openreach.

Patterson said: "For the past five years, the UK has been the largest digital economy in the G20, by percentage of GDP. We think the UK has an even brighter future ahead if we make the right decisions today. We want to forge an ultrafast future for Britain and stand ready to help government deliver the broadband speeds necessary for every property to enjoy modern day internet services, such as high definition TV streaming and cloud computing. To achieve this, we need a collaborative effort across industry and government."

StockMarketWire.com
BT has welcomed the Competition and Markets Authority' decision to provisionally approve its £12.5bn acquisition of EE, unconditionally without remedies. The company will continue to engage with the Authority through the remainder of its merger enquiry.

The CMA said today it has provisionally decided that the acquisition "is not expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition (SLC) in any market in the UK". These include the supply of retail mobile, wholesale mobile, mobile backhaul, wholesale broadband and retail fixed broadband services.

BT chief executive Gavin Patterson said: "We're pleased that the CMA has provisionally approved BT's acquisition of EE. The combined BT and EE will be good for the UK, providing investment and ensuring consumers and businesses can benefit from further innovation in a highly competitive market."

Merrill Lynch note:
"CMA provisional approval is a positive
The CMA has announced its view this morning that the BT/EE merger should be cleared without remedies. The CMA found no substantial lessening of competition (SLC) in relation to any of the markets (retail & wholesale mobile, mobile backhaul, retail and wholesale broadband). The CMA investigated the 10 Theories of Harm it identified in July; 20 submissions from third parties were reviewed and 10 hearings conducted.
New timeline: responses by 19th Nov, full decision by 18th Jan
A full report on the provisional findings will be published later this week. Responses are welcome by 19th November. The CMA has also extended its deadline for a final report by 8 weeks to 18th January in order to take full and proper account of submissions. We expect deal closure shortly after = payment to DT/Orange and consolidation. Any final decision can be challenged in the Court of Appeal, but we think this is unlikely.
No SLC across all markets, unanimous decision in all but one.
The CMA was unanimous in finding no SLC in all but one market. - wholesale mobile.
Here the 4 person committee was split 50:50. In the larger summary report on the case website outlining the CMA’s thoughts, SLC in wholesale mobile was considered possible in a world where mobile becomes a driver of bundle purchases. The overall view was that the other three MNOs offer credible wholesale competition. In our opinion, it is unlikely that the findings across all markets change. The CMA’s points are well reasoned and EE’s incentive to disadvantage wholesale mobile customers appears limited in a world where mobile is usually secondary to fixed in the bundle. Interestingly vertical integration of BT inc ownership of Openreach is not seen as an issue which Ofcom will undoubtedly take into account in its Strategic Review due early 2016. We rate BT a Buy, PO 600p
As argued in BT: Adding to Europe 1: Transformation continues, regulatory headwinds diminishing (121015) we believe through the acquisition of EE, BT will transform into a converged operator which will drive sustainable revenue and EBITDA growth and
therefore earnings ahead of current consensus estimates. Quad play/bundling are nascent in the UK but BT is well positioned to take a leading share in this segment as BT: i) can leverage its large portfolio of unregulated street furniture to deploy small cells ii) drives cross sell with a #1 share in broadband and unrivalled ability to use femtocell offload iii) has #1 or combined 45% of total UK mobile spectrum allowing EE to offer LTE at best possible speeds with full coverage. Next datapoint Q2s 29th Oct."

StockMarketWire.com
BT Group reports a good second quarter financial performance with revenue up 2%.

Underlying revenue excluding transit for the first half was up 1%.

First half EBITDA was flat at £2,891m but adjusted pre-tax profits rose by 5% to £1,400m.

Chief executive Gavin Patterson said: "We've delivered a good financial performance with revenue4 up 2% this quarter. "Fibre broadband is a success story and we continue to invest heavily to help the UK remain a broadband leader among major European nations. Our open access fibre network now passes 24 million premises and we are not stopping there. We want to get fibre broadband to as many people as possible and we are also pushing ahead with our plans to get ultrafast broadband to ten million premises by the end of 2020. Market-wide demand for fibre remains strong with fibre net additions up 21% as we hit the five million milestone for homes and businesses connected. "We've seen good demand for BT Sport Europe and this has helped us add a record number of BT TV customers in the quarter. Its contribution has been better than we expected, helping drive a 7% increase in BT Consumer revenue. Mobile is another growth area and I am pleased our consumer customer base now stands at more than 200,000. And I am also pleased that yesterday, the Competition and Markets Authority provisionally approved our planned acquisition of EE, unconditionally without remedies. "We are making step changes to improve customer service, as part of our group-wide programme. Openreach's recently launched 'View my Engineer' service is going down well. The 3,000 engineers we hired in the last 18 months are helping us fix faults faster and provide new services sooner. We have also created more than 1,000 new contact centre jobs in the UK, with hundreds more to come, to meet our 2016 commitment for more than 80% of consumer customer calls to be answered in the UK. And we have plans to go even further in years to come. "Our strategy is delivering and our results show we're on track to achieve our outlook for the year."

The group said key points for the second quarter:

· Growth in underlying revenue excluding transit, up 2.0%

· EBITDA1 down 1% reflecting our investment in BT Sport Europe

· 106,000 BT TV net additions, our best ever performance

· Strong order book across the group

· Interim dividend of 4.4p, up 13%

StockMarketWire.com
BT has announced that Clive Selley is to be the new chief executive of Openreach. Selley , who is currently CEO of BT Technology, Service and Operations (BT TSO) will replace Joe Garner, who is leaving to become CEO of Nationwide Building Society. The handover will take place this quarter.

Completion of the acquisition of EE Limited
Following the announcement earlier today regarding the Admission of 1,594,900,429 Consideration Shares, BT announces that completion of its acquisition of EE Limited took place today. Together with the Consideration Shares, Deutsche Telekom and Orange have received cash consideration of £3,464m in total. As a result of the acquisition, Deutsche Telekom and Orange own 12% and 4% respectively of BT's issued share capital.

As described in the Prospectus, the appointment of Timotheus Höttges to the BT Board has now taken effect.

BT Group's third quarter revenues have risen 3%, leaving the company's year-to-date revenues flat.

In results released on Monday, the company said revenue for the three months to 31 December 2015 was £4.59bn, with revenue for the nine months at £13.25bn.

Reported profit before tax also rose 24% for the quarter, up to £862m, and year to date profit up 18% to £2.14bn.

The FTSE 100 company also announced a new organisational structure following the acquisition of EE, a brand which is said will be retained.

just spotted this in an RNS yesterday
not sure when the official figures etc are published, but it explains the recovery of the stock in the last couple of days .....

For the year ended 31 March 2015, BT Group's reported revenue was £17,979m with reported profit before taxation of £2,645m.

JP Morgan Cazenove today reaffirms its overweight investment rating on BT Group PLC (LON:BT.A) and cut its price target to 490p (from 530p).

OPENREACH TO BE MORE INDEPENDENT AND TRANSPARENT

StockMarketWire.com
JP Morgan Cazenove has reduced its rating on BT Group (LON:BT.A) to 'neutral' from 'overweight', given the long list of headwinds faced by the telecoms group which are likely to cap any upside potential.

The broker has also lowered its target price to 440 pence a share from 490 pence.

"Whilst we continue to view BT Group as a high quality business with market leading assets, it faces a large number of headwinds in the coming 12 to 18 months," analysts commented.

"We believe these headwinds are sufficiently large in number, complexity, duration and potential adverse impact to keep investor enthusiasm subdued for the foreseeable future."

Deutsche Bank today reaffirms its sell investment rating on BT Group PLC (LON:BT.A) and cut its price target to 370p (from 390p).

StockMarketWire.com
BT Group's reported revenue rose 35% in the second quarter, and growth in underlying revenue excluding transit adjusted for the acquisition of EE up 1.1%.

Reported earnings per share were down 10%, adjusted earnings per share were up 4%.

Underlying EBITDA adjusted for the acquisition of EE was up 0.9%.

The group booked a non-cash specific item charge of £145m following initial investigation into inappropriate management behaviour in BT Italia.

Net cash inflow from operating activities of £1,734m, up £489m and normalised free cash flow3 of £894m, up £325m reflects timing of receipts and payments within the year; net debt £9,573m.

Interim dividend of 4.85p per share is up 10% and the outlook is unchanged.

Reported revenues for the half year rose 34% to £11,782m and pre-tax profits were up 9% at £1,388m.

Chief executive Gavin Patterson said: "This is a positive set of results, both operationally and financially, and we remain on track to achieve our full year outlook. We've made good progress on the integration of EE and the delivery of our synergy targets.

"Our consumer facing lines of business have performed well, but in the enterprise space, UK public sector continues to be a challenging market. Across the group, we continue to drive cost reduction and productivity improvements. Customer experience remains a key priority, and we're stepping up our investments in the second half of the year.

"And we'll continue to invest in our ultrafast and 4G plans in 2017 and beyond. Ofcom's consultation on the Digital Communications Review closed earlier this month; we've submitted our response and will continue to engage with Ofcom to reach the best outcome for the UK."

Early morning sell.

I'm getting in... this is an oversold position.

StockMarketWire.com
BT has warned it expects to take a hit of of around £530m on its Italian business, which is far greater than the amount it first anticipated.

The group announced on 27 October that an initial internal investigation of accounting practices in its Italian business had identified certain historical accounting errors and areas of management judgement requiring reassessment.

It said: "At that time, we announced the write down of items on the balance sheet by £145m, being the then best estimate of the financial impact of these issues.

"Since then we have progressed the investigation, which has included an independent review by KPMG LLP of the accounting practices in our Italian operations and our own comprehensive balance sheet review.

"These investigations have revealed that the extent and complexity of inappropriate behaviour in the Italian business were far greater than previously identified and have revealed improper accounting practices and a complex set of improper sales, purchase, factoring and leasing transactions. These activities have resulted in the overstatement of earnings in our Italian business over a number of years.

"The investigation into the financial position of our Italian business is now substantially complete.

"The adjustments identified have increased from the £145m announced in our half-year update to a total of around £530m. We are still evaluating what proportion of the total adjustments should be treated as prior year errors, and what proportion should be treated as the reassessment in the current year of management estimates.

"Work is also ongoing to establish how these adjustments should be reflected in BT Group's financial statements for the current and previous periods in light of applicable accounting requirements.

A recovery play here but not sure when.