New dance

19 May 2005 By Mike Verdin

The UK telecoms operator is raising the dividend and its debt target and it’s even talking about making more acquisitions. The tone is certainly upbeat. But that shouldn’t disguise the scale of the challenges ahead.

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BT, the British telecoms operator, has announced a return to revenue growth for the year to the end of March, helped by a 32% rise to £4.4bn in takings from broadband and IT services. In BT's legacy markets, the decline in underlying turnover was held at 5%.

The company also announced a 22% rise in its fullyear dividend, which has risen from 6.5p a share to 10.4p a share in two years.

It dropped a target of reducing its debt to £7bn by the end of 2007 in favour of directing extra cash at share buybacks and small acquisitions.

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