Financial Times: BT is a badly run hedge fund that happens to own a phone network

[ft] BT, the UK telecoms company, has just announced that its December 2008 actuarial valuation has not been completed because “the Pensions Regulator has indicated it wishes to discuss with the Trustee and BT the underlying assumptions and basis of the valuation”. Meanwhile, annual deficit contributions for the next three years have increased from £280m (€317m, $437m) to £525m.

The statement raises more questions than it answers, but the UK regulator’s involvement suggests disagreement between BT and pension trustees over the size of the actuarial deficit and the required cash contributions.

BT struggles to reinvent itself, the scale of pensions – £33bn IAS19 liabilities at March 2009, the UK’s largest – continue to overwhelm its market capitalisation of only £7bn.

Behind BT’s deep, dark pension deficit