BT Says Its First-Quarter Profit Climbs on Jobs Cuts, Revamped Operations

BT Group Plc, the U.K.’s largest fixed-line phone company, said first-quarter operating profit climbed 5.5 percent helped by job cuts.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and costs from job cuts rose to 1.4 billion pounds ($2.2 billion) in the three months ended June 30, from 1.33 billion pounds a year earlier, BT said in a statement today.

“We have made an acceptable start to the year, delivering improved financial results while investing in the future of the business,” Chief Executive Officer Ian Livingston said in the statement.

Revenue fell 4.4 percent to 5.01 billion pounds. Livingston slashed jobs and replaced executives at the global services unit to combat falling sales amid the economic slowdown. The company today confirmed its full-year outlook.

BT, which has 85 percent of the market for U.K. government telecommunications services, according to analysts at Collins Stewart, said last week it was “actively engaged” with the government on a review of commercial contracts as ministers aimed to cut costs.

Competing telecommunications supplier Cable & Wireless Worldwide Plc has forecast “somewhat slower growth” in full- year earnings after the government cut back on some investment programs.

BT is offering British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc’s Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 at a discount to the wholesale price as it seeks to attract users to its television service.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Browning in London jbrowning9@bloomberg.net.

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