BT Group (formerly British Telecommunications) and American telecom giant Verizon have announced a deal to combine their international enterprise operations into a joint venture, with 50:50 stakes, as the two companies focus on serving multinational clients and bringing together USD 4 billion in combined annual revenue.
“Verizon has agreed to pay BT an equalisation payment of usd 625 million, and both companies will hold equal voting rights in the new venture, which will serve more than 3,000 customers in over 180 countries,” the companies said in a joint statement.
“This is a very fragmented market, and this could be the start of further consolidation. We could possibly look to bring in third parties at some point in the future,” BT Chief Executive Allison Kirkby told Reuters.
The deal also marks a milestone for Kirkby, who has been steadily refocusing the 180-year-old British telecoms group on its home market while shedding international assets. Kirkby, who had been a BT board member, took the helm of the struggling venture in February 2024. Since then, she has overseen a multibillion-pound cost-cutting program across BT’s business.
Under her watch, while BT is looking to raise its savings target from 3 billion pounds by 2029 to 3.7 billion by 2030, its combined headcount, by the decade’s end, will likely remain at between 75,000 and 80,000, towards the lower end of an estimated range of 75,000 to 90,000 decided in 2023.
In 2025, Kirkby’s pay and bonus package more than doubled to 5.6 million pounds, a compensation that became the biggest pay award to a telecom boss in more than a decade. Shares in BT, on the other hand, have risen by more than 70% since she started in her leadership role.
Verizon CEO Dan Schulman, who has been aggressively pushing his own turnaround strategy at the American wireless carrier, termed the venture “the clear answer” for international customers seeking secure and flexible connectivity that will be effective across borders and cloud environments.
Verizon, which announced its cost-cutting in November 2025, will scrap about 13,000 jobs across the organization in the coming days, a move that Schulman has justified as “intended to simplify our operations to address the complexity and friction that slow us down and frustrate our customers.”
Martijn Blanken, a former executive at Australia’s Telstra and Netherlands-based KPN, has been named as the CEO-designate of the new company. He will join BT Group in September 2026 and work with both parent companies to launch the combined entity’s operations.
“We see this as a unique opportunity to create a scaled player to serve our multinational customers much better,” Kirkby said, adding that the two companies’ customer footprints were complementary, with only the odd overlap.
The Verizon deal will serve as a timely boost for BT, which, as per the reports, has been encountering weakness in its international business, which, in turn, has been a drag on the company’s earnings. BT is also reviving talks with firms such as AT&T and Orange to turn things around in the overseas market through partnership vehicles.
“The USD 625 million payment to BT will be used to fund the venture, and any remaining amount will be used to pay down debt,” Kirkby said.