BT share price: what’s the outlook after Deutsche Bank downgrades stock?

BT Group saw its share price continue its descent on Monday after Deutsche Bank downgraded the company’s stock to a sell rating and slashed its target price recommendation.

The telecoms provider saw its share price tumble more than 2.5% on Monday, while the stock has lost over 7% of its value in the last five days of trading, with it trading at 193.76p a share as of 10:00 GMT on Tuesday.

Deutsche Bank slashed its target price for the stock from 217p to 175p on Monday. Analysts at the German lender justified their decision, saying that BT has become one of the ‘least attractive’ European telecoms providers due a lack of fibre deployment.

‘However, given our view that the European telcos sector is cheap which when combined with DB’s absolute (rather than relative) recommendation system, we had ranked the stock at Hold (after three years at Sell),’ Deutsche Bank said in a note to investors.

BT sells up in Spain to focus on UK market

According to recent report by the Telegraph, BT has begun looking for potential buyers for its Spanish business as its break-up and restructuring plans of its international division Global Services accelerate so it can turn its attention to the UK market and halt its share price falling any further.

The sale of BT España will run parallel to its ongoing sale of BT Ireland, with the British telecoms company hoping to attract interest from buyout firms and infrastructure investors rather than rivals in Spain like Orange, Vodafone, MásMóvil and Telefónica, according to the report.

BT rebrands itself to highlight its not just a telco

As part of a rebranding strategy aimed at highlighting that BT is far more than a telecoms company, it has hired London-based studio Red&White to help it show off its wide range of services that include cyber security software to digital skills programmes in schools.

After working on the project for more than three years, Red&White recently unveiled new branding for the British telco.

‘BT has been very British around shouting about its other services,’ Creative Director at Red&White Paul Franklin told Design Week. ‘We wanted to help the brand generate the confidence to tell these stories and change perceptions for the British public – it’s a tech brand, not just a telecoms brand.’