BT's fibre plan starts to deliver as its architect Jansen bows out

By Sarah Young

LONDON (Reuters) - BT Group, Britain's biggest broadband and mobile provider, posted second-quarter earnings ahead of forecasts, lifting its shares in a boost for outgoing CEO Philip Jansen and his strategy of rolling out its fibre network.

Shares in BT jumped 6% in early trade, good news for Jansen who will step down early next year and has long said he has been disappointed by the stock's performance. Shares have halved since he took over in 2019.

Lower unit build costs in rolling out fibre helped boost profits and mean normalised cash flow for the 2024 financial year is now expected to be at the top end of its 1.0-1.2 billion pound range, BT said on Thursday.

Jansen will leave mid-way through the completion of his multi-billion pound investment into fibre and 5G networks, but he said the long-term benefits to cash flow were becoming increasingly apparent.

"The investment case for FTTP (fibre networks) looks really strong," Jansen told reporters.

In July, BT said Allison Kirkby, a board member and the boss of Sweden's Telia Company, would replace Jansen.

"I think we've made enormous progress. I would have liked to have gone faster on everything, frankly," Jansen said when asked if he had any regrets about his nearly five years as CEO.

For the three months to end-Sept, BT posted a 3% rise in adjusted core profit (EBITDA) to 2.06 billion pounds ($2.51 billion), beating the 2.03 billion pounds consensus forecast.

"This was a decent set of results," said Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Matt Britzman. "Given the pressure shares have been under of late, investors should be relatively happy."

BT's biggest shareholder is Patrick Drahi, whose Altice UK unit has a 24.5% stake. Asked whether there were any signs Drahi might need to sell his stake to raise cash as he deals with difficulties at Altice France, Jansen said: "No".

($1 = 0.8215 pounds)

(Reporting by Sarah Young, additional reporting by Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza, James Davey and Christina Fincher)