BT says no need to go to bond market in coming year

Source: Reuters

Date :07/10/2008 16:35:21

BT Group chief executive Ian Livingston said on Tuesday the group has not been affected "yet" by the global financial crisis and has no need to go to the bond markets in the coming 12 months.

He said while the group's UK consumer business was seeing the impact from the slowing new homes market, there were no plans to alter its broadband roll-out targets.

Livingston told a press lunch that the group's corporate business was doing well and that the global financial crisis had also brought opportunities in the sector, potentially in the form of acquisitions.

These would be "in the tens and hundreds of millions. I doubt they'll be in billions," he said.

Asked on the sidelines of the event about the need to raise fresh debt, Livingston said: "Not in the next year, unless a market window opens, in which case we might look."

As for the possibility of raising funds from commercial paper, he said: "I don't know, it could be easy tomorrow, difficult the next day."

In response to a question about whether the group had been affected by the current crisis, Livingston said: "The answer is not yet, but I put the emphasis on the word yet."

He also said that, at this point, the group did not need to alter its 2009 forecast. "Our business has been remarkably solid and today nobody knows the market in which we operate."

"It looks today that our global corporate business is still doing well, I think the recession is particularly today focussed on Western consumers."

Livingston, answering a question about whether the group would retain its target of a 10 percent EBITDA margin for the division this year, said; "The EBITDA margin last year was in double digits and we said it would decline a little bit."

He confirmed the target of a 15 percent EBITDA margin from Global Services in 2012.

(Reporting by Matt Gil; Editing by Andrew Macdonald)

PARIS (Reuters)