© Reuters.
By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com — BT Group (LON:) stock fell 4.4% at the open on Thursday after the U.K. telecoms group said the government will take a closer look at the investment in it by the Altice company of French businessman Patrick Drahi.
BT said the Secretary of State for Business, Industry and Skills had exercised his right to investigate the holding under the government’s new national security legislation, which came into force in January.
Altice U.K., the British arm of Drahi’s business empire, has accumulated an 18% stake in BT Group over the last year, first disclosing 12% last June and then raising it another 6% in December after a standstill arrangement ended. Drahi has said he doesn’t want to take over BT, the largest telecoms group in the U.K., which still has an effective monopoly on last-mile fixed-network infrastructure through its Openreach unit.
The stock has risen some 16% from its lows since Drahi first started building his stake, the latest leg up being supported also by the prospect of consolidation in the fiercely competitive mobile market through a combination of the local arms of Vodafone (NASDAQ:) and CK Hutchison (HK:). However, like many U.K. stocks, it has come under pressure in recent months from the slowdown in the British economy.
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