Jan 24, 2017 07:00 GMT

BT previously announced on 27 October 2016 that an initial internal investigation of accounting practices in its Italian business had identified certain historical accounting errors and areas of management judgement requiring reassessment. At that time, we announced the write down of items on the balance sheet by £145m, being the then best estimate of the financial impact of these issues.

Since then we have progressed the investigation, which has included an independent review by KPMG LLP of the accounting practices in our Italian operations and our own comprehensive balance sheet review. These investigations have revealed that the extent and complexity of inappropriate behaviour in the Italian business were far greater than previously identified and have revealed improper accounting practices and a complex set of improper sales, purchase, factoring and leasing transactions. These activities have resulted in the overstatement of earnings in our Italian business over a number of years.

The investigation into the financial position of our Italian business is now substantially complete. The adjustments identified have increased from the £145m announced in our half-year update to a total of around £530m. We are still evaluating what proportion of the total adjustments should be treated as prior year errors, and what proportion should be treated as the reassessment in the current year of management estimates. Work is also ongoing to establish how these adjustments should be reflected in BT Group’s financial statements for the current and previous periods in light of applicable accounting requirements.

In addition, we would expect the matters described above to result in a reduction in our Q3 adjusted revenue and adjusted EBITDA of around £120m, and in a reduction in Q3 normalised free cash flow of around £100m. For 2016/17 as a whole, relative to our prior outlook, we would expect a decrease in adjusted revenue of around £200m, in adjusted EBITDA of around £175m, and of up to £500m of normalised free cash flow due to the EBITDA impact and the one-off unwind of the effects of inappropriate working capital transactions. For 2017/18, we would expect a similar annual impact to adjusted revenue and adjusted EBITDA as in 2016/17, with the EBITDA impact flowing through to normalised free cash flow. An updated outlook for the Group reflecting the above and other matters is set out below.

The EBITDA contribution of the Italian business included in the Group’s reported EBITDA for the financial year ended 31 March 2016 was around 1%.

The improper behaviour in our Italian business is an extremely serious matter, and we have taken immediate steps to strengthen the financial processes and controls in that business. We suspended a number of BT Italy’s senior management team who have now left the business. We have also appointed a new Chief Executive of BT Italy who will take charge on 1 February 2017. He will review the Italian management team and will work with BT Group Ethics and Compliance to improve the governance, compliance and financial safeguards in our Italian business.

Further, we are conducting a broader review of financial processes, systems and controls across the Group. The BT Group Remuneration Committee will consider the wider implications of the BT Italy investigation.

Gavin Patterson, Chief Executive BT Group plc, said:

“ We are deeply disappointed with the improper practices which we have found in our Italian business. We have undertaken extensive investigations into that business and are committed to ensuring the highest standards across the whole of BT for the benefit of our customers, shareholders, employees and all other stakeholders. ”

Update on BT Group outlook

For Q3, with the exception of the financial impact of the BT Italy investigation, we expect to report results broadly in line with market expectations. Our consumer-facing businesses are set to report good revenue growth, with Consumer delivering continued volume and ARPU¹ growth and EE achieving revenue growth for the first time. Within Business and Public Sector, Corporate and SME continue to benefit from the integration of EE and strong mobile demand, while Wholesale and Ventures is seeing an improving underlying revenue trend. Openreach is expected to report its highest ever fibre broadband connections, and an improvement in customer experience, including halving missed appointments year on year.

Looking ahead, however, the outlook for UK public sector and international corporate markets has deteriorated. For Business and Public Sector, this means we now expect a double-digit year on year percentage decline in Q4 underlying EBITDA adjusted for the acquisition of EE.

As a result of the outcome of the BT Italy investigation and the pressures in the UK public sector and international corporate markets, we now expect underlying revenue excluding transit adjusted for the acquisition of EE to be broadly flat in 2016/17 and adjusted EBITDA to be around £7.6bn.Normalised free cash flow is now expected to be around £2.5bn.

For 2017/18, we now expect both underlying revenue excluding transit and adjusted EBITDA to be broadly flat year on year. We expect normalised free cash flow to be £3.0bn - £3.2bn.

This outlook is provided on the basis of our existing investment plans.

We continue to expect to grow our dividend per share by at least 10% in both 2016/17 and 2017/18. We have completed our £206m buy back of shares in 2016/17 to help counteract the dilutive effect of all-employee share option plans maturing in the year.

In summary, our outlook for 2016/17 and 2017/18 is as follows: