BT looks to shareholders for financial aid

If you are a long-term British Telecom shareholder you can be forgiven for feeling bewildered. Barel...

If you are a long-term British Telecom shareholder you can be forgiven for feeling bewildered. Barely five years ago, the company was the UK's flagship. It was negotiating to buy MCI in the US, picking up stakes in various European companies to build up a seamless pan-global phone network, and paying its shareholders decent dividends. Now we learn that just for the company to maintain an A grade credit rating it may have to ask shareholders for about £5bn through a rescue rights issue. How can this be, you might ask? It was only four years ago that the company felt it was sufficiently cas...