BT Group PLC (LON:BT.A) has sold its London head office building for £210mln as it looks to make efficiencies in order to fund investment in the business as well as its dividend.
The FTSE 100 telecoms group has inked a deal to sell the BT Centre building next to St Paul’s Cathedral to a fund managed by London-based Orion Capital Managers.
READ: BT Group to consolidate its offices across the UK from 300 current locations to around 30 sites
As part of the deal, BT will lease back the 300,000 sq ft building for up to 30 months while it moves headquarters to a new location in London.
BT, which said it would soon announce the location of the new HQ, is making the move as part of a wider turnaround plan that includes cutting 13,000 jobs and shrinks its number of offices across the UK from 300 to around 30 sites.
The former state monopoly is also looking to fund the huge investment to roll out fibre broadband across the country.
To fund this, chairman Jan du Plessis this month told shareholders that BT will consider reducing the dividend in “a year or two”, while recent reports indicated that selling its Spanish business could offer a nearer-term injection of funds.