Embattled BT names Worldpay’s Philip Jansen CEO By Reuters

(Reuters) – BT Group Plc (L:) named Philip Jansen as its new Chief Executive on Thursday, ending months of speculation on who it would task with tackling a host of problems at Britain’s biggest broadband and mobile provider.

Several media outlets had flagged Jansen as the frontrunner for the job over the last few months after the board and investors lost confidence in his predecessor Gavin Patterson earlier this year.

Jansen joins from payment processing firm Worldpay (N:) where he was co-chief executive and will be appointed to the board as an executive director on Jan. 1 before taking over from Patterson on Feb. 1.

Jansen, 51, has been Worldpay CEO for 5 years and lead the business through the UK’s largest ever financial technology IPO. He was widely reported by media to be the most likely successor.

Patterson ran BT for almost five years and announced some 13,000 job cuts earlier this year as the former fixed-line monopoly struggled with a host of problems including intense competition, an underperforming IT services unit, a huge pension deficit and criticism of its broadband plans.

A failure to hit a revenue target and a forecast for no growth in profit for the next couple of years sent its shares to six-year lows in May.

Jansen will be paid 1.1 million pounds per annum along with a cash allowance in lieu of pension of 15 percent of salary and an annual bonus of up to 240 percent of salary subject to performance.

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