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13 May 2010 By Una Galani Follow @ugalani

After years of pain, the UK telecoms giant is fully delivering on its targets. Claims that revenue growth will return by 2013 look credible, and stronger operational performance should offset concerns about BT’s 8 bln pound pension deficit. The shares’ 9 pct jump is justified.

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Shares in BT jumped 10 percent after the UK telecom operator posted betterthanexpected fullyear results and forecast a return to revenue growth in 2012/2013.

Revenue to the year ending March 31 2010 declined 2 percent to 20.9 billion pounds, against a forecast of 20.7 billion pounds. However, BT cut 1.8 billion pounds of costs, helping it to report a pretax profit of 1 billion pounds, against a 244 million loss in 2009.

The group announced plans to invest a further 1 billion pounds to extend the rollout of its highspeed fibre to around twothirds of UK homes by 2015, up from a target of 40 percent of homes by 2012.

The pension deficit, as calculated by the fund's trustees, fell to 7.5 billion pounds at the 31 December 2009, down from 9 billion pounds a year ago. BT is waiting for a response from the pension's regulator over its 17 year plan to tackle to the deficit.

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