Is BT finally close to the end of its Italian opera?
Bloomberg BNN reports that investment groups Asterion Industrial Partners and Nextalia are potential bidders for BT Group’s Italian business. BT Italia offers security, cloud and networking services to large and multinational enterprises, and wholesale clients.
BT Global (formerly BT Global Services) has been steadily offloading assets over the last few years, since its Italian business was involved in a fraud scandal which emerged in 2016. BT Global sold parts of its Italian operations to TIM in 2021 and to Retelit in 2023. Last April, the company cut the remaining workforce in Italy of 484 by 128.
When news of the scandal broke, BT’s share price sharply and has never recovered. The reputational damage was considerable, not helped by previous scandals in BT’s global operations. BT Group had to make provision for over half a billion pounds in its accounts.
The fallout continued for years: it was only in January this year that a court in Milan convicted eight people of fraudulent accounting after a lengthy trial. Court proceedings began in 2021 against BT Italia itself and 20 defendants including Richard Cameron, the former CFO of BT Global Services, and Corrado Sciolla, formerly BT’s head of continental Europe. The two were found not guilty.
The eight people convicted were all Italians. They all have consistently denied any wrongdoing and plan to appeal.