BT European cost cutting imminent

NEWS Ben Verwaayen, BT's new CEO, is likely to announce a trimming of the amount European operations are costing the group when he presents a review to City analysts next week. Top of the list will be reining in spend at business services division BT Ignite. Verwaayen is likely to call for it to reach operational break even, reports today's FT, but EBITDA figures for the last calendar year show it was £94m in the red. There remains little consensus on whether BT will ditch operations it spent millions setting up in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.