"Bullish" BT Global Services

Full page article on Francois Barrault and BT Global Services in the FT today - Barrault highlights Global value to BT. Also a mini profile of the 'Insider is outside contender'.

As I am an adviser to BT Global Services I had better be very careful in my comments. Barrault certainly paints a very 'bullish revenue outlook' for the division with an "assertion that economic downturn will boost the BT GS order book".

For those that constantly speculate on BT GS' M&A ambitions, the FT says "BT Global Services' revenue performance has been fuelled by 28 acquisitions, worth £1.5bn, over the past three years, and Mr Barrault said more deals were likely, notably in IT services. He played down the possibility of large deals, but said BT might be interested in buying parts of a large telecoms or IT group. He suggested other companies could purchase the remaining parts".

On the subject of whether he might be a contender for Ben Verwaayen's CEO job (where Ian Livingston is considered to be the current internal frontrunner) Barrault replied "There is no vacancy right now. I hope Ben will do the job as long as he can."