Get ready, then, for a newcomer in the great international sport of owning chunks of BT. Indian conglomerate Bharti Enterprises, led by the billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal, is buying the 24.5% stake held by the French billionaire Patrick Drahi’s Altice Group. Bharti will be rubbing shoulders with Germany’s Deutsche Telekom (12%) and the Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim (3%).
Bharti looks to be a vast improvement on Drahi. The Frenchman distracted the market for a couple of years by being mysterious about his long-term intentions at BT, but it’s been obvious for a while that he had become a natural seller rather than buyer. He is now retreating, at a presumed heavy loss, to attend to the tower of debt within his wider Altice empire. With the overhang cleared via a clean-ish exit plan, BT’s shares perked up 8%.
