British Telecommunications Plc has announced pre-tax profits for the year ending 31 March down by 5.5%, to UKP2,302m after taking into account an exceptional charge related to restructuring of UKP390m. Turnover grew by 11.2% to UKP12,315. Telecom’s chairman, Iain Vallance once again declared the company’s results as satisfactory and said the restructuring was an investment on which BT would be looking to see an early return – although how early he did not specify. The restructuring operation which was announced in March involves organising the company into five divisions and making management cuts of between 10% and 15% around 5,000 managers are to go this year. The UKP390m exceptional charge covers the cost of restructuring for the coming two years but finance director Barry Romeril said he could not forecast what would happen beyond that – nor would he give any figures on future job losses except to say that the rate of loss would remain consistent. In the fourth quarter, employees in the main telecommunications operations fell by 2,400. Telecom says the rationalisation plans are an effort to emulate the streamlined structure of best of the regional Bell companies in the US and part of a strategy to become the world’s most successful telecommnications company. Outside the UK, Telecom intends to focus on the mobile communications market, as it says this is the most deregulated and easiest to penetrate, and also an area that is set to become more important in global telecommunications. Cellnet, BT’s UK cellular network, was profitable and subscribers increased by 65%, although market share remained the same. The main features of turnover figures are a 10% volume growth in domestic calls and a 13% increase in international calls. Income from overseas telecommunication opera tors went up to UKP762m from UKP642m last time. Telecom stressed its 5.7% increase in capital spending to UKP3,115m, the bulk of which was on optical fibre cable and cellular telephone radio equipment – reflecting the future target areas. The market liked the figures and the shares put on ninepence to 287 pence.
