Not surprisingly, perhaps, the board of BT has been painfully aware of the decline in the company’s share price (Alex Ralph writes). In early May Philip Jansen, the telecoms group’s chief executive, told the City that he was “very conscious” of the perceived undervaluation in the market of its Openreach broadband infrastructure business. Reports — quickly denied — followed that BT was in the early stages of discussions over a potential multibillion-pound stake sale of Openreach. Then there was talk that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund had been building a holding.
Most recently, over the weekend, reports surfaced that the board was preparing to defend BT against takeover approaches from industry rivals and buyout firms. Bankers at Goldman Sachs had been asked to update its
