The chairman of beleaguered British telecoms group BT, Sir Iain Vallance, is to quit and be replaced by a top BBC director, the BBC reported today.
Mr Vallance, who has been under pressure for months from shareholders worried about debt, has run the privatised telecoms group for almost 15 years first as chief executive and latterly as chairman.
He will step down at the end of April - more than a year before he was originally due to retire and will be replaced by BBC chairman Sir Christopher Bland.
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Vallance said he had decided to jump - and denied he was being pushed.
"This is my initiative," he said. "This is something I have wanted to do for some years. We really ought to do it now," he said adding that he would remain emeritus chairman, a role which will enable him to advise the board.
Investors responded by bidding up BT's share price up two per cent to £5.90, but the stock remains far below last year's high point closing value of £15.00.
The rot set in for BT when it was forced to pay billions of pounds on third generation mobile licences and assets, ratcheting its debt up to more than £30 billion (euro 47.6 billion).
Credit ratings companies have warned that they will downgrade BT's rating - a move that would cost it hundreds of millions of pounds in additional interest a year - if the company does not reduce its debt by a promised £10 billion this year.
AFP