BT's garage sale continues

NEWS Sir Christopher Bland has expressed his displeasure at the mounting losses of Concert, BT's troubled joint venture with AT&T. The situation at Concert, 50 per cent owned by BT, has worsened since the company last month announced losses of $1bn a year. Bland told the Sunday Times that the figures were "unsustainable", adding that stemming the losses is now his major priority. Possibilities include an outright sale to AT&T, or merging BT's relatively successful Ignite web-hosting division with Concert in a bid to make the overall package more attractive. Concert is still chaired by Sir Iain Vallance, Bland's much-criticised predecessor as BT chairman. The potential sale is part of BT's bid to offload a range of assets in an attempt to cut its debt mountain, which was estimated at £30bn before the sell-offs began. Last week, the Yell directories business was sold to two venture capital firms, Apax Partners and Hicks Muse, Tate & Furst, for £2.2bn. BT aims to demerge BT Wireless by September, and other wireless options are also expected to go. On Friday, however, the company announced that Syntegra, the systems arm of Ignite, was not going to put up for sale.