BT Group PLC (LON:BT.A) has responded to last week’s story by Sky News that the telecoms firm was given an ultimatum by chief executive Philip Jansen over the position of chairman Jan du Plessis.
The article claimed Jansen had given the BT board a ‘back me or sack me’ choice with the former WorldPay boss said to be increasingly frustrated that plans for a major overhaul of the telecoms giant were progressing too slowly.
In a statement today, BT said: “The company announced on 1 March the intention of Jan du Plessis to retire as Chairman in 2021 once a successor has been appointed, and we are very sorry he will be leaving.
“The chairman throughout his tenure has demonstrated strong leadership of the company, been extremely supportive of management and any suggestion that he has impeded the transformation of BT is without foundation.
“There has been no misalignment between the board and executive management over the company's strategy.”
However, the statement did not refute the report of the ultimatum contained in Friday's story.
One of issues highlighted was the future of Openreach, the group’s network infrastructure, with Jansen said to be open to a sale of part or all of the business or even bringing in a partner to help finance a technology upgrade.
Du Plessis was said to be more interested in building bridges with UK regulator Ofcom.
Openreach is in the middle of a huge investment programme and BT shares rose strongly last week as it was identified as a beneficiary of the super-deduction capital investment tax break introduced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak in the Budget.