BT cuts 4,000 jobs as annual profits fall 19% to £2.4bn

BT is to cut 4,000 jobs following a "challenging" year that has seen its chief executive stripped of his annual bonus amid a 19% fall in profits to £2.4bn.

The telecoms firm said managerial and back-office posts would be lost worldwide as it looked for efficiencies across its operations. It did not say how many roles would be affected in the UK.

The FTSE 100 company, which had warned of a hit to profitability in January, also confirmed an earlier report by Sky News that its headwinds in the year to 31 March meant Gavin Patterson had lost awards that would result in him taking home £4m less than in the previous financial year.

The group's outgoing finance director, Tony Chanmugam, was also stripped of bonuses.

The moves - described as "difficult decisions" by the firm's remuneration committee - follow BT's accounting scandal in Italy which helped wipe billions from the company's stock market value earlier this year.

BT shares, 16% down in the year to date, were 3.4% lower in late morning trading on Thursday.

Its problems also included the telecoms regulator imposing a record £42m fineon the company for "serious failings" at its Openreach division, leaving BT also facing a £300m compensation bill.

BT had, only weeks previously, agreed to a legal separation of its infrastructure arm after pressure from industry rivals including Sky, the owner of Sky News, on competition grounds.

In addition to the group's results for the last financial year, the company also announced that Openreach was launching a consultation with BT's competitors on how best to enhance broadband connectivity across Britain.

Ideas include "building the investment case for a large-scale 'full fibre' network and bringing faster broadband speeds to 'not-spots' which can only order less than 10 Mbps services today", BT said.

Commenting on the bonus decisions, the chair of its remuneration committee Tony Ball said: "The past year has been challenging.

"Although good progress has been made in a number of areas, unfortunately our performance has been significantly affected by the accounting irregularities in our Italian business, the issues that arose in Openreach around deemed consent and the significant challenges we faced in the UK public sector and international corporate markets.

"The committee has made a number of difficult decisions this year in light of these circumstances and exercised its discretion accordingly."

BT said both Mr Patterson and Mr Chanmugam had indicated they would not have accepted a bonus should one have been approved.