BT Group confirmed reports an aim to cut £1 billion of annual costs had been met well ahead of its March 2023 target, with speculation the next round of savings could be detailed in its financial results statement this week.

The operator is set to reveal results for its fiscal Q2 (calendar Q3) on 4 November along with a trading update from senior management.

Yesterday (31 October), The Sunday Telegraph and several other news outlets reported BT was ahead of its latest target to reduce costs and was assessing the best timing to detail the next phase of its so-called modernisation programme.

The newspaper noted BT was likely to either announce new targets this week or in December, when a potential takeover bid from Altice UK could be legally launched.

BT’s statement came less than a week after reports emerged claiming it had hired investment bank Robey Warshaw to help protect against any buyout attempt from the shareholder when its obligation not to make a full takeover bid expires.

Cuts
In a brief stock market statement today (1 November), BT confirmed its reduction target had been reached, but provided no detail on future plans.

When it revealed the target in 2020, CEO Philip Jansen said BT needed to become “leaner, simpler and more agile”, and would “re-engineer old and out-of-date processes, rationalise products, reduce rework and switch off many legacy services”.

Part of the savings came from a reduction in workforce costs, continuing a project started under Jansen’s predecessor Gavin Patterson to streamline the organisation.