Informa CEO doesn’t seem to fancy the BT job

It has been reported that Informa CEO Stephen Carter has been approached by BT as part of its search to replace CEO Gavin Patterson.

Sky News got the scoop, reporting Carter ‎’has been sounded out in the last few weeks about the post.’ Carter hasn’t publicly commented on the matter but apparently one of his unnamed friends has, confirming the approach but stressing he is not a candidate for the BT CEO gig, nor is he any part of the recruitment process.

It seems more likely that a headhunter has been ringing around senior telecoms execs to gauge their interest in running BT and Carter was on their list. Somehow this process came to the attention of Sky News and here we are. Intriguingly Carter’s mystery mate, who we have no reason to believe doesn’t accurately represent his position, indicated to Sky that Carter could yet be persuaded to shift his current position on the vacancy.

Carter was always likely to be on any headhunter’s shortlist, as Telecoms.com and Light Reading (both of which are owned by Informa) have speculated previously. He has a strong telecoms background including NTL and Alcatel Lucent, as being the founding CEO of UK telecoms regulator Ofcom. But thanks to a recent M&A spending spree, including the £3.9 billion acquisition of UBM, there seems to be plenty to hold Carter’s attention at Informa right now.

The smart money is on EE boss Marc Allera to move up to the BT CEO role. The acquisition of EE at the start of 2016 has served to illustrate how behind the times the core BT business is. Allera has shown he gets the modern consumer telecoms game and is already part of the mix so he would seem to be the safe choice. Besides, apparent shopaholic Carter is unlikely to be interested in a company that has already blown its M&A budget for the next few years.