The planned buy out of the satellite interests of BT Media and Broadcast, the division within UK giant, British Telecom, that operates ‘business to business’ broadcasting industry interests, has fallen at the final fence.
After long and protracted negotiations that we here at Digital Lifestyles have been covering for the last six months, we can reveal here that the deal will not go through. Rumours have been rife for the last week or so after Barclays Private Equity (BPE) failed to get the necessary agreements to cut suppliers costs.
BT like other large telco’s is finding itself with more Satellite capacity than it can usefully manage, remains committed to a sale and is now considering the long term future of some of its’ other major earth stations.
The failure of the negotiations that valued the sale at around £80m, is expected to enable key players from both sides to ‘spend more time with their families’ and staff who had elected to join the new company that Barclays were putting together, face a prolonged period of uncertainty while “reserve bidders” are consulted, including a further interested private equity outfit.
As you may recall, we first reported the 
The transfer and negotiations around the unit are likely to have given BT some food for thought as to how they can manage the disposal of business units they do not see as key, or that are giving rates of return below the main business’s targets.
The story we’ve 
The problem is that BT staffers are unhappy at being bundled in with the sale and have worries that long term they could see a reduction in the conditions they enjoy. One of their unions, the CWU, has now after balloting, threatened strike action, hoping to change BT’s management’s attitude to those described as ‘in scope’ by the potential deal.
Now to us here at Digital Lifestyles, this threatened action seems to have a bit of a King Canute/70’s vibe about it. The truth of the matter, is that the competitive landscape has changed in telecommunications and broadcasting. BT is answerable to their city shareholders, and a move to tackle some of the entrenched attitudes within the company’s workforce might be looked on favourably by the number crunchers around the London stock exchange.
We understand from good sources that BT is set to announce the name of the buyer for a major slice of its Media and Broadcast operations.
In the frame for the buyout, which is likely to involve the transfer of over 100 employees, is the Australian-backed Arqiva and a major UK bank.
Further deals for incumbent European telecoms operators are on the cards as they retreat into their core businesses. See France Telecom, who recently off-loaded one of its Paris Earth Stations to the satellite operator 
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