UPDATE: Barclays Sees Moves to Sports as Necessary for BT Group

Barclays maintains an Overweight rating on BT Group

as the company moves into Sports. Barclays writes, “Does BT have a chance of making Sports work where others have failed? We see the move into Sports as necessary, but it presents execution risk, and will likely destroy value. It should help preserve core cashflows for the longer term. We accept that football creates an overhang with no outcome likely for the foreseeable future. However, valuation remains attractive, and with forecasts somewhat derisked we re-iterate our 1-OW, with 260p PT (was 275p), due to lowered FCF forecasts.” BT Group closed at $31.56 on Tuesday.