Monday was an exciting day for shareholders in telecoms firm BT Group (LSE: BT.A) after news broke. As a result, the BT share price whipsawed, before closing at 163.4p, up 9.4p (+6.1%) on the day. Here’s what happened as Monday unfolded.
The BT share price leaps on bid rumours
As soon as the London Stock Exchange opened, the BT share price shot to the top of the FTSE 100‘s leader table. At its early-morning peak, this popular and widely held stock hit an intra-day high of 168.6p, 9.5% above Friday’s closing price of 154p. This followed an Indian newspaper article claiming that billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries was interested in bidding for the UK’s ex-monopoly telecoms business.
However, as the day wore on, the BT share price started slipping back, reaching a low of 160p before bouncing to close another 3.4p higher. What’s more, later on Monday, Reliance Industries dismissed the bid rumours as “speculative and baseless”. Nevertheless, some investors still cling to the hope of a bid materialising for BT, whose share price has crashed by more than half (-54.4%) over the past five years.
Patrick Drahi owns 12% of BT
Earlier this year, French-Moroccan billionaire Patrick Drahi announced that he had built a stake of more than 12% in BT stock. Following this announcement, a standstill agreement was imposed on Drahi that prevented him making any bid for BT before 11 December. This restriction ends in 12 days, so let’s see what happens to BT shares after then.