BT to sell off its fleet division

BT Group is preparing to sell its fleet management arm encompassing 333,000 BT and Openreach-branded vehicles. The deal is anticipated to provide hundreds of millions of pounds for the telecom provider.

Although in its early stages, the sale is estimated to yield a price of £200 million or more.

Lazard, the investment bank, has been appointed to handle the sale through an auction. Credit Suisse is assisting BT with the sale of its Global Services division, which provides IT and other services to corporate customers.

Early this year, BT's current chief executive Gavin Patterson announced plans to move its long-serving London headquarters in a symbolic move to accelerate BT's modernisation. In the new year, however, Philip Jansen will replace Patterson as chief executive and the sale of its fleet arm is one of the many assets BT intends to sell prior to the change in management.

The fleet arm also serves other corporate clients which includes maintenance of a total of 120,000 vehicles and 840 in-house commercial vehicle staff. The division also owns a network of 65 garages across the UK and provides a range other services including accident management, vehicle funding and consultancy.

Sources have reported that the fleet arm sale is likely to include a leaseback arrangement so that company's engineers will be able to continue to use the vehicles.

The shares in the fixed-line, mobile telephony, IT services and broadcasting group have recovered in the last year and has now secured BT with a market value of just over £25 billion.

BT's fleet arm works with over 500 contractor facilities and has more than 50 mobile technicians.

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