BT Group (BT-A.L) - Company Research

Last Updated: 18 September 2026

BT Group plc is two quite different businesses inside one share price. Openreach, the regulated national access network, generated 31.5% of group revenue in FY2026 but 51.3% of group adjusted EBITDA, and was the only division growing both. Everything else — Consumer, Business and the international arm now being folded into a joint venture with Verizon — is managing decline, defending market share and cutting cost. The FY2026 results published on 21 May 2026 met or beat every guidance metric, but reported revenue still fell 3% to £19,654m and net debt edged up to £19,966m. The investment question is whether the capital expenditure cliff after the full-fibre build completes converts into the roughly £3.0bn of normalised free cash flow management has promised by the end of the decade, from £1,508m in FY2026. This report sets out what the filings say, with no analyst price targets and no third-party ratings. For live price action see our Live Charts.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Legal name	BT Group plc. Registered office 1 Braham Street, London E1 8EE. Registered in England and Wales number 4190816
Listing	London Stock Exchange, ticker BT.A (BT-A.L), quoted in pence (GBX). Unsponsored ADR trades OTC as BTGOF; the NYSE listing was cancelled in 2019
Index membership	FTSE 100, FTSE 350, FTSE 350 High Yield and FTSE All-Share constituent. Unaffected by the September 2026 FTSE Russell quarterly review, whose changes take effect 21 September 2026
Market cap	£20.52bn at 208.20p, London Stock Exchange data for the 17 September 2026 session. BT's RNS of 28 August 2026 confirmed 9,968,127,681 shares in issue with 487,815 in treasury, giving 9,967,639,866 total voting rights
Revenue (FY2026, year to 31 March 2026)	£19,654m reported, down 3%. Adjusted revenue £19,646m, down 4%. Adjusted UK service revenue £15,445m, down 1%
Adjusted EBITDA (FY2026)	£8,230m, flat year on year and up roughly 1% on a like-for-like basis excluding divestments. Within the £8.2bn to £8.3bn guided range
Reported operating profit (FY2026)	£2,897m, up 16%. Profit before tax £1,436m, up 8%. Profit after tax £1,077m, up 2%
CEO / Leadership	Allison Kirkby, Chief Executive since February 2024. CFO Patricia Cobian, previously CFO of Virgin Media O2, who joined the board as an executive director on 20 July 2026 succeeding Simon Lowth. Chairman Adam Crozier, in post since December 2021, who also became Experian's chairman in July 2026 while retaining the BT role. Openreach CEO Katie Milligan since 1 April 2026
Employees	79,390 at 31 March 2026, down from 87,772 in FY2025 and 94,135 in FY2024. Full-time equivalent 77,152. UK 61,131 and non-UK 18,259. BT's wider total labour resource measure, which includes third-party non-employees, fell 7% to below 108,000 in FY2026 and to 94,000 excluding International by Q1 FY2027
Dividend	8.32p for FY2026, up 2%, comprising a 2.45p interim paid 11 February 2026 and a 5.87p final paid 9 September 2026. New policy from FY2027: grow the dividend by a low-to-mid single-digit percentage a year until metrics consistent with a BBB+ credit rating are reached
Net debt	£19,966m at 31 March 2026, up 1%. Net financial debt excluding lease liabilities £15.8bn. The IAS 19 gross pension deficit of £4.2bn sits outside this figure
Fiscal year end	31 March. FY2026 was the year to 31 March 2026

Every figure above comes from BT's own FY2026 results release of 21 May 2026, its Annual Report 2026, its Responsible Business Addendum 2026, its Q1 FY2027 trading update of 23 July 2026, its own published analyst consensus of 28 August 2026, BT regulatory announcements, or London Stock Exchange market data. No aggregator has been used as a primary source for any BT financial figure.

2. Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

• The capital expenditure cliff is real and dated: FY2026 capital expenditure excluding spectrum was £5,114m against FY2027 guidance of roughly £4.3bn and a mid-term commitment to cut more than £1bn from the FY2026 level. Openreach reaches its 25 million premises full-fibre target by the end of December 2026. Normalised free cash flow is guided from £1,508m in FY2026 to roughly £2.0bn in FY2027 and roughly £3.0bn by the end of the decade.
• Openreach is a growing regulated monopoly-adjacent asset: adjusted revenue up 1% to £6,190m and adjusted EBITDA up 5% to £4,225m in FY2026, with broadband average revenue per user up 4% to £16.7 and up 7% to £17.7 by Q1 FY2027. The full-fibre footprint reached 23.4m premises with 9.4m connected and a 40% take-up rate, the highest of any major UK fibre provider.
• Cost transformation has been raised, not missed: £580m of gross annualised savings in FY2026 at a £336m cost to achieve, and £1.5bn cumulative over two years. The overall programme was increased from £3.0bn to £3.7bn and extended a year to FY2030. Total labour resource fell 7% and Openreach repair volumes 18% in FY2026, then 21% in Q1 FY2027.
• The Verizon joint venture removes a loss-making drag: the 50:50 international enterprise joint venture announced 29 June 2026 combines roughly US$4bn of annual revenue across 3,000 customers in more than 180 countries, with Verizon paying BT a US$625m equalisation payment. International contributed £2,114m of adjusted revenue in FY2026 but only £145m of EBITDA and minus £117m of normalised free cash flow.
• Valuation and yield are undemanding on adjusted numbers: at 208.20p the shares trade on 11.4x FY2026 adjusted earnings and roughly 5.0x enterprise value to adjusted EBITDA, with a 4.00% yield on the declared FY2026 dividend and an explicit policy of low-to-mid single-digit annual growth from FY2027.

Bear Case

• Revenue has not grown in five years: reported revenue was £20,850m in FY2022 and £19,654m in FY2026. BT's own published consensus has FY2030 revenue of £17,336m against FY2027's £17,374m on a continuing basis, which is five more years of flat-to-down. Cost cuts and capital expenditure reduction, not growth, are doing all the work in the cash flow story.
• Consensus does not believe the £3bn target: BT's own compiled analyst consensus of 28 August 2026 has normalised free cash flow at £2,606m in FY2030 against management's roughly £3.0bn. That gap of roughly £400m is the single most important disagreement in the story, and it is published by the company itself.
• Total obligations are far larger than net debt suggests: reported net debt of £19,966m already includes £4,184m of lease liabilities but excludes the IAS 19 gross pension deficit of £4.2bn, which rose from £4.1bn. On an all-in basis the obligation is closer to £24bn against a £20.52bn market capitalisation. FY2026 pension deficit payments alone were £790m, and the 2026 triennial valuation has not been published.
• Openreach is losing broadband lines and regulation is live: FY2026 line losses were 825,000 with roughly 800,000 guided for FY2027 and 794,000 in consensus. The Telecoms Access Review 2026 to 2031 retained geographically differentiated regulation and extended the nominal price cap to speeds up to 80Mbps from 40Mbps, and Ofcom is separately reviewing four new Openreach wholesale pricing offers proposed for 1 October 2026.
• Consumer is nearly half of revenue and barely growing: Consumer adjusted revenue fell 2% to £9,494m in FY2026 with EBITDA down 2%, broadband average revenue per user down 1% to £41.7 and mobile down 1% to £19.3. Q1 FY2027 added just 1,000 broadband and 13,000 postpaid mobile customers. Against VodafoneThree and Virgin Media O2, pricing power is limited.
• Insider behaviour is not a vote of confidence: the only cash purchases by directors in 2026 were routine dividend reinvestments, the largest being the chief executive's 8,280 shares at 200.00p on 9 September 2026. The departing chief financial officer sold roughly £1.41m of shares across June 2026. No director made a discretionary open-market purchase with cash.

3. Revenue Segments

BT reorganised its reporting twice in short order. A new International customer-facing unit was carved out of Business during FY2026 and FY2025 comparatives were restated; the old Global segment no longer exists. From Q1 FY2027 International is classified as a discontinued operation ahead of the Verizon joint venture, and the continuing segments are Consumer, Business, Openreach and Other. The percentages below are of group adjusted revenue of £19,646m for FY2026, and sum to more than 100% because divisional revenue includes intra-group sales that are then eliminated.

Segment / division	% of revenue	What it is
Consumer	48.3% (£9,494m)	EE, BT and Plusnet retail broadband, mobile, TV and landline to UK households. Revenue down 2%, adjusted EBITDA down 2% to £2,602m, so 48.3% of revenue produces 31.6% of EBITDA. Normalised free cash flow of £1,273m, up 24%, was the group's largest divisional contribution
Openreach	31.5% (£6,190m)	The regulated national access network, selling wholesale fibre and copper lines to all UK retail providers including BT's own Consumer and Business units. Revenue up 1%, adjusted EBITDA up 5% to £4,225m, adjusted operating profit up 5% to £2,095m. This is 31.5% of revenue but 51.3% of group EBITDA and the only division growing both lines
Business	26.8% (£5,257m)	UK corporate, public sector and small-business connectivity, networking and IT services. Revenue down 2% and adjusted EBITDA down 5% to £1,266m, with adjusted operating profit down 19% to £496m. The weakest division on profit trend
International	10.8% (£2,114m)	Multinational customers headquartered outside the UK. Revenue down 15% after five non-core disposals during FY2026, adjusted EBITDA down 29% to £145m and normalised free cash flow of minus £117m. Reported as a discontinued operation from Q1 FY2027 pending the Verizon joint venture
Other and intra-group elimination	-17.3% (£13m less £3,422m)	Central items of £13m revenue, plus the £3,422m elimination of sales between divisions, principally Openreach billing BT Consumer and BT Business for access lines. Other carried minus £970m of normalised free cash flow, reflecting group interest, tax and pension payments

Adjusted UK service revenue, BT's preferred growth measure because it strips out low-margin equipment sales, was £15,445m in FY2026, down 1%: Consumer £7,853m flat, Business £4,803m down 1%, Openreach £6,190m up 1%, Other £12m, less £3,413m of intra-group items. Segment depreciation and amortisation was Openreach £2,130m, Consumer £1,673m, Business £770m, International £208m and Other £94m, totalling £4,875m before specific items.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. BT sells connectivity twice. Openreach charges every UK retail internet provider a regulated monthly rental for the line into each premises, including BT's own retail arms, generating £6,190m of revenue at a 68% EBITDA margin. Consumer and Business then buy those lines, add mobile spectrum, television content, routers and service, and resell the bundle to end customers at a much lower margin. Roughly £3.4bn of group revenue is BT billing itself and is eliminated on consolidation.

Unit economics. Group adjusted EBITDA margin was 41.9% in FY2026, but the divisional spread is extreme: Openreach at 68.3%, Consumer at 27.4% and Business at 24.1%. Openreach's economics improve as customers migrate from copper to full fibre because average revenue per user rises, at £16.7 for FY2026 and £17.7 by Q1 FY2027, while repair costs fall, with volumes down 18% in FY2026 and 21% in Q1 FY2027. That is the core operating thesis: fibre is a higher-price, lower-cost product than copper once it is built.

The moat. Openreach's network reaches essentially every UK premises and its full-fibre footprint passed 23.4m premises by June 2026, more than two thirds of the country, including 6.3m rural premises that competitors have limited incentive to serve. Replicating that would cost tens of billions and take a decade. Openreach also holds a 40% take-up rate on its fibre footprint, the highest among major UK providers, which matters because fibre economics are driven by penetration per premises passed rather than premises built.

Where the moat is capped. The same regulation that protects Openreach's position also limits what it can earn from it. Ofcom's Telecoms Access Review 2026 to 2031 retains geographically differentiated wholesale controls, splitting the country into Area 2, covering 86% of premises with lighter-touch regulation, and Area 3, covering 14% with stronger controls, and extends the nominal price cap on charges to retail providers to download speeds up to 80Mbps. Openreach must also continue offering physical infrastructure access to every competing network operator under a strict anti-discrimination obligation, which is how altnets have built at all. BT does not get to price like a monopoly.

Capital allocation. FY2026 capital expenditure of £5,127m exceeded adjusted EBITDA less interest and tax, which is why normalised free cash flow was only £1,508m on £7,030m of operating cash inflow. Dividends cost £807m, interest £1,028m, lease payments £731m and pension deficit contributions £790m. The entire equity story rests on capital expenditure falling by more than £1bn once the build completes while EBITDA holds, and on the new dividend policy of low-to-mid single-digit growth until a BBB+ rating is reached, after which residual cash is available for enhanced distributions.

5. Financial Health

All figures below come from BT's own results releases for FY2023 through FY2026, its Annual Report 2026 and its half-year release for FY2026. Each figure is taken from the release in which it was first reported. BT reports full quarterly revenue and EBITDA but discloses earnings per share only at the half year and full year.

Fiscal Year	Revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2022	£20,850m	n/m †	12.9p	20.3p	7.70p	£16,185m
FY2023	£20,681m	-0.8%	19.4p	22.0p	7.70p	£18,521m
FY2024	£20,797m	+0.6%	8.7p	18.5p	8.00p	£18,526m
FY2025	£20,358m	-2.1%	10.8p	18.8p	8.16p	£18,762m
FY2026	£19,654m	-3.5%	11.0p	18.3p	8.32p	£18,536m

† The FY2021 revenue comparative is not carried in the FY2023 release from which the FY2022 column is taken, so a reported FY2022 growth rate is not stated here rather than estimated. Earnings per share figures are basic; diluted GAAP EPS was 10.8p in FY2026 and 10.6p in FY2025. The long-term debt column is loans and other borrowings, current plus non-current, and excludes lease liabilities, which were £4,571m at FY2025 and £4,184m at FY2026. The FY2026 composition shifted sharply, with current borrowings falling from £2,092m to £420m and non-current rising from £16,670m to £18,116m as BT raised £1,843m of bonds and bank loans and repaid £2,347m. FY2025 comparatives in the FY2026 release were re-presented for the formation of the International unit; revenue, earnings per share and dividend are unaffected, but adjusted UK service revenue for FY2025 moved from £15,582m as originally published to £15,568m.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
Q1 FY2027 (3 months to 30 June 2026)	£4,300m continuing basis ‡	Not disclosed in quarterly updates	Not disclosed in quarterly updates
Q4 FY2026 (3 months to 31 March 2026)	£4,864m adjusted	Not disclosed in quarterly updates	Not disclosed in quarterly updates
Q3 FY2026 (3 months to 31 December 2025)	£4,976m adjusted §	Not disclosed in quarterly updates	Not disclosed in quarterly updates
Q2 FY2026 (3 months to 30 September 2025)	£4,927m adjusted	Not disclosed in quarterly updates	Not disclosed in quarterly updates
Q1 FY2026 (3 months to 30 June 2025)	£4,879m adjusted §	Not disclosed in quarterly updates	Not disclosed in quarterly updates
FY2026 total (year to 31 March 2026)	£19,646m adjusted	18.3p	11.0p

‡ Q1 FY2027 is reported on a continuing-operations basis with International classified as discontinued, so it is not directly comparable with the FY2026 quarters above, which include International. On that continuing basis Q1 FY2027 revenue was flat year on year, adjusted UK service revenue fell 1% to £3.8bn, and adjusted EBITDA fell 1% to £2.0bn. Discontinued International contributed £451m of adjusted revenue and £29m of EBITDA in the quarter. Continuing profit before tax was £505m, down 4%, and total profit before tax including discontinued operations was £462m. § Q1 and Q3 FY2026 revenue figures are derived by subtracting the reported second quarter from the reported first half, and the reported fourth quarter from the derived second half, because BT publishes first-half, second-quarter, fourth-quarter and full-year figures but not standalone Q1 and Q3 revenue lines in the same format.

Half-year detail for FY2026. The first half to 30 September 2025 produced reported revenue of £9,810m, adjusted revenue of £9,806m, adjusted EBITDA of £4,126m, reported basic earnings per share of 6.70p and adjusted basic earnings per share of 9.30p, with normalised free cash flow of only £408m against £715m a year earlier. That implies a second half with roughly £9,840m of adjusted revenue, £4,104m of adjusted EBITDA, 4.3p of reported earnings per share and 9.0p of adjusted earnings per share, and the great majority of the full-year £1,508m of normalised free cash flow. BT's cash generation is heavily weighted to the fourth quarter, which matters when judging interim results.

Cash flow and balance sheet at 31 March 2026. Net cash inflow from operating activities was £7,030m, up 1%, with cash generated from operations of £7,088m and income taxes paid of just £58m. Cash purchases of property, plant, equipment and intangibles were £5,169m, presented net of £90m of government grant inflows; capital expenditure on BT's own measure was £5,127m including £13m of spectrum. Depreciation and amortisation including impairment charges was £4,913m on the cash flow statement, of which £4,875m sat in operating costs before specific items, comprising intangibles £1,274m, property, plant and equipment £2,969m and right-of-use assets £610m. Loans and other borrowings were £18,536m, split £420m current and £18,116m non-current, with lease liabilities of £4,184m, split £779m current and £3,405m non-current. Cash and cash equivalents were £359m with current asset investments of £1,482m, giving £1,841m of liquid resources, plus a £2.1bn undrawn committed facility maturing no earlier than January 2031. Reported net debt was £19,966m, a figure that includes lease liabilities and excludes the pension deficit. Retirement benefit obligations on the balance sheet were £4,379m against a £170m surplus asset elsewhere. Total equity was £12,564m, property, plant and equipment £24,650m, goodwill £7,305m and right-of-use assets £3,032m. Specific items cost £716m after tax, including £336m of restructuring and a £218m share of Sports joint venture impairment losses.

6. Valuation Metrics

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Market cap	£20.52bn at 208.20p on 9.85bn shares per London Stock Exchange data for the 17 September 2026 session. BT's own RNS of 28 August 2026 gives 9,967,639,866 total voting rights, which at the same price produces £20.76bn
Trailing P/E (GAAP)	18.9x on FY2026 reported basic earnings per share of 11.0p, as published by the London Stock Exchange. On FY2026 adjusted basic earnings per share of 18.3p the same price gives 11.4x. The gap is specific items, which cost £716m after tax in FY2026 including £336m of restructuring and a £218m Sports joint venture impairment
P/E (forward)	15.0x on FY2027 consensus reported basic earnings per share of 13.9p, or 11.6x on consensus adjusted basic earnings per share of 18.0p, both taken from BT's own published analyst consensus dated 28 August 2026. That consensus is on a continuing-operations basis and also carries FY2027 revenue of £17,374m, adjusted EBITDA of £8,137m and dividend per share of 8.60p
P/S (TTM)	1.04x (market cap £20,520m / FY2026 reported revenue £19,654m). On the FY2027 continuing-operations consensus revenue of £17,374m the forward figure is 1.18x
Enterprise value	£41.40bn (market cap £20.52bn + loans and other borrowings £18.54bn + lease liabilities £4.18bn − cash and cash equivalents £0.36bn − current asset investments £1.48bn, per the 31 March 2026 balance sheet). Using BT's own reported net debt of £19.97bn instead, which applies swapped exchange rates and excludes certain items, the figure is £40.49bn. Neither includes the £4.2bn gross pension deficit
EV/EBITDA (TTM)	5.30x (EV £41,399m / reported EBITDA £7,810m, where EBITDA = reported operating profit £2,897m + depreciation and amortisation including impairment charges £4,913m). The £4,913m figure is the wider cash-flow-statement total rather than the £4,875m disclosed in operating costs before specific items. On BT's own adjusted EBITDA of £8,230m the multiple is 5.03x, or 4.92x using BT's reported net debt basis
P/FCF	11.0x on the standard formula (market cap £20,520m / FCF £1,861m, where FCF = net cash inflow from operating activities £7,030m − cash capital expenditure £5,169m per the FY2026 cash flow statement). On BT's own normalised free cash flow of £1,508m, which additionally reflects lease payments and excludes the net cash cost of specific items, the multiple is 13.6x. On the roughly £2.0bn guided for FY2027 it falls to 10.3x, and on the roughly £3.0bn targeted by the end of the decade to 6.8x
Price/book	1.63x (market cap £20,520m / total equity £12,564m at 31 March 2026)
Net debt / adjusted EBITDA	2.43x on reported net debt of £19,966m and adjusted EBITDA of £8,230m. Excluding lease liabilities, net financial debt of £15.8bn gives 1.92x. Including the £4.2bn gross pension deficit the ratio rises to roughly 2.94x
52-week high	242.00p, set on 13 May 2026, eight days before the FY2026 results
52-week low	173.00p, set on 25 November 2025
Dividend yield	4.00% on the declared FY2026 dividend of 8.32p, or 3.94% on the trailing 8.21p recorded by the London Stock Exchange. On the FY2027 consensus dividend of 8.60p the forward yield is 4.13%
Short interest (% of float)	2.28% of issued share capital across four individually disclosed open positions per London Stock Exchange data: Canada Pension Plan Investment Board 0.65% (last changed 22 May 2026), D. E. Shaw 0.60% (2 March 2026), Kintbury Capital 0.53% (10 June 2026) and Marshall Wace 0.50% (2 July 2026). This is a legacy snapshot, because from 13 July 2026 the FCA stopped publishing individual net short positions by holder and now publishes only anonymised aggregate net short positions above a 0.2% threshold. For a current figure consult the FCA's aggregated publication rather than this total
Days to cover	Not published for UK-listed lines. The FCA and London Stock Exchange regime discloses percentage of issued share capital only, not borrow volumes or a short-interest ratio. Days-to-cover data exists only for the thinly traded OTC ADR line and is not comparable. Verify at fca.org.uk/markets/short-selling

7. What Are They Building

The literal answer is a fibre network. Openreach passed a record 4.8m premises with full fibre in FY2026, described as the fastest build in Europe, reaching a footprint of 23m premises at 31 March 2026 including 6.3m in rural areas, then 23.4m by 30 June 2026 after adding 514,000 in the quarter. The committed target is 25 million premises by the end of December 2026, reported as on track in both the FY2026 results and the Q1 FY2027 update, with an ambition of up to 30 million by 2030. Take-up is keeping pace: FY2026 delivered a record 2.2m net fibre connections to reach 8.8m connected at a take-up rate above 38%, and Q1 FY2027 added a further record 574,000 to reach 9.4m at 40%.

The second thing being built is a materially smaller company. BT raised its cost transformation target from £3.0bn to £3.7bn and extended it a year to FY2030, at a cost to achieve of £1.4bn rather than £1.0bn. FY2026 delivered £580m of gross annualised savings for £336m spent, taking the two-year cumulative total to £1.5bn. The physical proof points are network energy use down 6%, total labour resource down 7% to below 108,000 with direct labour down 10%, and Openreach repair volumes down 18%. Q1 FY2027 extended each of those to 8%, 8% and 21% respectively. Allison Kirkby has publicly indicated that artificial intelligence could push headcount below the 75,000 to 90,000 range previously guided for the end of the decade.

Specific artificial intelligence deployments disclosed in the Annual Report 2026 include an improved generative-AI virtual assistant for EE customers, automated interaction summarisation, real-time prompts for service agents, nearly 5,000 colleagues using AI coding tools across roughly 6.5 million lines of code a year, and work with Amazon Web Services toward a self-healing autonomous mobile network operations centre. Openreach separately reported in September 2026 that AI tools were preventing roughly 3,000 full-fibre cancellations a month.

On the mobile side, 5G+ population coverage went from 43% to 73% during FY2026 and to 77% by June 2026, the 5G customer base grew 10% to 14.5m, and EE retained independent best-network status across the Umlaut, Opensignal and RootMetrics surveys. EE launched Fast Lane on 5G+ on 20 August 2026, a UK first that prioritises traffic for subscribers during congestion. Fixed-mobile convergence rose from 24.6% to 26.6% in FY2026 and 26.8% by June 2026, and the retail full-fibre base grew 31% to 4.5m, reaching 4.8m by June 2026 with Consumer fibre at 54% of its broadband base. FY2027 is, in Kirkby's words, the final year of the public switched telephone network, with the analogue landline migration due to complete.

8. Competitive Landscape

BT's most direct UK competitors are not separately listed, which limits peer comparison to the continental European incumbents. Market capitalisations below were checked in September 2026; reporting periods are not aligned, so absolute revenue figures are not comparable without normalising.

Peer	Market cap (September 2026)	Key 2025/2026 metric
Vodafone Group (LSE: VOD)	£30.49bn at 131.75p, with a 52-week high of 131.85p set on 17 September 2026 and a low of 83.40p on 14 October 2025	FY2026 to 31 March 2026: total revenue €40.5bn up 8.0%, service revenue €33.5bn up 8.8%, adjusted EBITDAaL €11.4bn up 3.8%, at the upper end of guidance. The growth is largely the consolidation of Three UK rather than organic. Reported earnings per share was negative at minus 1.435p
Deutsche Telekom (ETR: DTE)	US$155.44bn	FY2025 net revenue €119.1bn, up 4.2% organic. Roughly eight times BT's market capitalisation and the clearest illustration of the scale gap between BT and the largest European incumbents
Orange (EPA: ORA)	US$48.71bn, with a cross-check of US$47.9bn at 11 September 2026	FY2025 revenue €40.396bn, up 0.9%, with all 2025 targets fully achieved
Telefónica (BME: TEF)	US$24.25bn	FY2025 revenue €35.1bn, up 1.5% in constant terms. Telefónica is also BT's UK competitor indirectly, as 50% owner of the Virgin Media O2 joint venture
Millicom International Cellular (NASDAQ: TIGO)	Approximately US$15.7bn to US$16.3bn depending on the snapshot date between late August and early September 2026. The least precise figure in this table	Emerging-market fixed and mobile operator, included for scale comparison rather than direct competition
Virgin Media O2	Not separately listed. A 50:50 joint venture of Liberty Global and Telefónica	FY2025 total revenue £10,113.1m, down 5.3%, with guided revenue excluding handsets and nexfibre construction up 0.2% to £7,706.5m. Q2 2026 revenue £2,398.9m. The combined Virgin Media and nexfibre footprint reached 18,811,600 homes serviceable at Q2 2026, of which 9.0m full fibre. 2026 guidance is for 3% to 5% declines in proforma service revenue and EBITDA
VodafoneThree	Not separately listed. A private UK joint venture, with Three UK consolidated into Vodafone Group from FY2026	The merged entity is the principal challenger to EE in UK mobile and drives Vodafone Group's reported 8.0% revenue growth. Also named in press reports as a primary retail partner for a proposed CityFibre and Netomnia combination, which remains speculation rather than a confirmed transaction
Sky UK and CityFibre	Not separately listed. Sky is owned by Comcast; CityFibre is a private altnet	Sky is one of Openreach's largest wholesale customers and simultaneously a retail competitor to BT Consumer. CityFibre is the largest independent alternative network and the main structural threat to Openreach's footprint advantage, having built using the physical infrastructure access that Ofcom obliges Openreach to provide

Two ownership facts are worth separating from competition. Bharti Enterprises holds roughly 24.5% of BT, acquired from Altice in 2024 and 2025, with Deutsche Telekom on roughly 12% and Carlos Slim on roughly 3.2%. Press reports in May 2026 suggested Bharti was seeking UK government support to raise its stake toward 29.9% without making a full offer, but a Bharti spokesman said the group was pleased with its current holding of roughly 24.95% and currently had no plans to increase it. No offer for BT Group has been made.

9. Leadership and Insider Activity

Allison Kirkby has been chief executive since February 2024 and is quoted as such in both the FY2026 and Q1 FY2027 releases. Patricia Cobian, previously chief financial officer of Virgin Media O2, joined the BT Group plc board as an executive director and executive committee member on 20 July 2026, succeeding Simon Lowth after a managed handover. Adam Crozier has been chairman since December 2021 and no BT succession has been announced, though he separately became Experian's chairman after that company's annual general meeting on 22 July 2026 while retaining the BT role. Katie Milligan became chief executive of Openreach on 1 April 2026, succeeding Clive Selley, who became chief executive of BT International. Martijn Blanken joined BT on 1 September 2026 as chief executive designate of the Verizon joint venture.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Price	Value	Plan Type
Allison Kirkby, Chief Executive	9 Sep 2026	Purchase	8,280	200.00p	£16,560	Dividend reinvestment
Sabine Chalmers, Group General Counsel	9 Sep 2026	Purchase	Disclosed in the same RNS, individual total not separately reported	200.00p	Not separately reported	Dividend reinvestment
Greg McCall, Chief Security and Networks Officer	9 Sep 2026	Purchase	Disclosed in the same RNS, individual total not separately reported	200.00p	Not separately reported	Dividend reinvestment
Simon Lowth, then Chief Financial Officer	24 Jun 2026	Sale	461,555	195.00p	£900,032	Sale following share plan vesting; resulting holding 1,810,407
Simon Lowth, then Chief Financial Officer	24 Jun 2026	Transfer from share plan on vesting	639,864	Nil cost	Nil	Share plan vesting; resulting holding 1,810,407
Simon Lowth, then Chief Financial Officer	15 Jun 2026	Sale	256,022	200.00p	£512,044	Sale following share plan vesting; resulting holding 1,632,098
Simon Lowth, then Chief Financial Officer	15 Jun 2026	Transfer from share plan on vesting	275,384	Nil cost	Nil	Share plan vesting; resulting holding 1,632,098

The pattern is clear and worth stating plainly. The June 2026 transactions are a classic vest-and-sell-to-cover sequence by a chief financial officer ahead of retirement, totalling roughly £1.41m of sales. The September 2026 activity is routine dividend reinvestment by sitting persons discharging managerial responsibility, not conviction buying. No BT director made a discretionary open-market purchase with cash in calendar 2026. That is a neutral-to-negative insider signal, in contrast to the balance-sheet and cash flow trajectory management is describing.

10. Key Risks

• Free cash flow target risk: the entire equity case rests on normalised free cash flow rising from £1,508m in FY2026 to roughly £3.0bn by the end of the decade. BT's own published consensus of 28 August 2026 has £2,606m in FY2030, a shortfall of roughly £400m against management's target. If consensus is right rather than management, the stock is materially more expensive than the headline multiples imply.
• Pension risk: the IAS 19 gross deficit rose to £4.2bn at 31 March 2026 from £4.1bn, driven by mortality and inflation assumption changes and weaker asset returns. It sits outside reported net debt. Deficit contributions are £600m a year to 31 March 2030 plus a final £490m and £180m a year under the 2020 asset-backed arrangement. The 2026 triennial valuation had not been published at the date of this report, and conditional triggers add £150m a year if the deficit is £1bn behind plan, rising to £300m a year at £2bn behind.
• Regulatory risk on Openreach pricing: the Telecoms Access Review 2026 to 2031 extended the nominal price cap on charges to retail providers to speeds up to 80Mbps from 40Mbps, and Ofcom is reviewing four new Openreach wholesale offers notified on 1 June 2026 and proposed to take effect 1 October 2026. Ofcom is also consulting separately on whether to rely on Openreach contracts rather than impose charge controls for wholesale local access pricing. Adverse outcomes would compress the division producing 51.3% of group EBITDA.
• Altnet and cable competition: Openreach lost 825,000 broadband lines in FY2026 with roughly 800,000 guided for FY2027. Virgin Media O2 and nexfibre have 18.8m homes serviceable including 9.0m full fibre, and CityFibre continues to build using the physical infrastructure access Ofcom obliges Openreach to provide. A CityFibre and Netomnia combination, discussed in press reports but not confirmed, would create a roughly 12m-premises third network.
• Execution risk on the Verizon joint venture: completion is expected in the second half of 2027 and is subject to regulatory clearance across the more than 180 countries the combined business serves. International is already classified as discontinued and all continuing metrics restated, so a failure to complete would require the restatement to be unwound and would leave BT owning a business that generated only £145m of EBITDA and minus £117m of free cash flow on £2,114m of revenue.
• Consumer pricing and churn risk: Consumer is 48.3% of revenue but produced only 31.6% of EBITDA, with broadband average revenue per user down 1% and mobile down 1% in FY2026. Q1 FY2027 net additions were 1,000 in broadband and 13,000 in postpaid mobile. Against a merged VodafoneThree and a discounting Virgin Media O2, inflation-linked price rises are the main lever, and they are politically and regulatorily exposed.
• PSTN switch-off and migration risk: FY2027 is the final year of the public switched telephone network, and BT was still publicly urging customers not to ignore the switch as late as 16 September 2026. A poorly executed migration of remaining analogue landline customers, many of them elderly or dependent on telecare, carries reputational, regulatory and cost consequences.
• Cash flow quality risk: BT explicitly flags its use of bills of exchange for handsets, handset receivables programmes and copper forward sales, including a £99m prepayment received in FY2026, to manage cash timing. Income taxes paid were only £58m against £1,436m of profit before tax. Both warrant scrutiny when assessing the durability of the reported operating cash inflow of £7,030m.

11. Recent Developments

• 16 Sep 2026 — BT urged customers not to ignore the digital landline switch. The company issued a public reminder as the public switched telephone network retirement enters its final year, with FY2027 described by the chief executive as the last year of the PSTN. Separately on the same date BT announced that its Drone SIM is powering police drone capability for rail incident response.
• 11 Sep 2026 — Dividend reinvestment purchases by the chief executive and two senior executives. Announced 11 September for dealings on 9 September, Allison Kirkby acquired 8,280 shares at 200.00p, taking her holding to 739,772, with Sabine Chalmers and Greg McCall reinvesting on the same terms.
• 9 Sep 2026 — The FY2026 final dividend of 5.87p per share was paid. The shares went ex-dividend on 6 August 2026 with a record date of 7 August, completing a full-year dividend of 8.32p, up 2% on FY2025.
• 1 Sep 2026 — Martijn Blanken joined BT as chief executive designate of the Verizon joint venture. The appointment fills the leadership of the combined international enterprise business ahead of completion, expected in the second half of 2027.
• 28 Aug 2026 — BT published its latest analyst consensus alongside a total voting rights announcement. The consensus put FY2027 continuing revenue at £17,374m, adjusted EBITDA at £8,137m, normalised free cash flow at exactly the guided £2,000m, and FY2030 free cash flow at £2,606m against management's roughly £3.0bn. The voting rights RNS confirmed 9,968,127,681 shares in issue and 9,967,639,866 voting rights.
• 20 Aug 2026 — EE launched Fast Lane on 5G+, a UK first. The feature prioritises network traffic for subscribers when the network is busiest, extending EE's premium positioning after retaining independent best-network status in FY2026.
• 23 Jul 2026 — Q1 FY2027 results reconfirmed all guidance on a restated continuing basis. Revenue was flat at £4.3bn, adjusted EBITDA down 1% at £2.0bn, with record quarterly Openreach fibre net adds of 574,000 and a take-up rate of 40%. The chief executive reconfirmed roughly £2.0bn of cash flow for FY2027 and roughly £3.0bn by the end of the decade.
• 29 Jun 2026 — BT and Verizon agreed a 50:50 international enterprise joint venture. The combination brings together roughly 3,000 customers in more than 180 countries with roughly US$4bn of combined annual revenue, with Verizon paying BT a US$625m equalisation payment. From Q1 FY2027 the International unit is reported as a discontinued operation and all continuing-basis metrics have been restated.
• 21 May 2026 — FY2026 results met or beat every guidance metric and introduced a new dividend policy. Adjusted revenue of £19,646m, adjusted EBITDA of £8,230m, capital expenditure excluding spectrum of £5,114m and normalised free cash flow of £1,508m all landed within or above guidance. The cost transformation target was raised to £3.7bn and extended to FY2030, and the dividend policy moved to low-to-mid single-digit annual growth until BBB+ credit metrics are reached.

12. Key Dates to Watch

• 1 Oct 2026 — Proposed effective date for the four new Openreach wholesale pricing offers notified to Ofcom on 1 June 2026, covering two incremental full-fibre customer offers, an Ethernet net-demand offer and a six-month extension to the Equinox 550Mb incentive. Ofcom's call for inputs closed 19 June 2026
• 5 Nov 2026 — H1 FY2027 results, covering the half year to 30 September 2026. The FY2027 interim dividend is expected to be declared with these results
• Expected Nov 2026 — The consumer price index print that determines the Equinox full-fibre discount adjustments Openreach notified to internet service providers in June 2026, which take effect 1 July 2027
• Expected Dec 2026 — Openreach's committed 25 million premises full-fibre milestone, reported as on track at both FY2026 results and Q1 FY2027 from a footprint of 23.4 million at 30 June 2026
• Expected Feb 2027 — Q3 FY2027 trading statement and payment of the FY2027 interim dividend. BT reported Q3 FY2026 on 5 February 2026 and paid the FY2026 interim on 11 February 2026, but neither FY2027 date has been published
• Expected May 2027 — FY2027 preliminary results. BT reported FY2026 on 21 May 2026; the FY2027 date is not yet on its financial calendar
• Expected Jul 2027 — Annual general meeting. The 2026 meeting was held on 9 July 2026 and the 2027 date has not been scheduled
• TBC — Publication of the BT Pension Scheme triennial funding valuation as at 30 June 2026, which had not been published at the date of this report and determines whether the conditional contribution triggers of £150m or £300m a year are activated
• TBC — Completion of the BT and Verizon international joint venture, expected in the second half of 2027 subject to regulatory clearances

UK inflation and Bank of England rate decisions matter directly to BT, through both its inflation-linked price rises and the discount rate applied to its pension liabilities; both are tracked on our Economic Calendar. Discussion of this report and other FTSE 100 names is open on the ChartsView Forum.

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