BT CEO earns praise amid earnings gloom

By Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) - Analysts used to the grand optimism of former BT boss Ben Verwaayen were confronted on Friday with the brutal honesty of his replacement, Ian Livingston.

Speaking after posting a profit warning that pushed shares in the group down to historic lows, Livingston laid the group's problems bare.

"Frankly, given our lack of delivery, what is going to be important is that we show quarter after quarter where we improve things," he told analysts on a conference call. "That's what I want to do ... It is now (time to) deliver and talk, rather than talk and deliver."

Livingston said the problems at BT Group's (BT.L) Global Services unit, which handles the IT and telecoms services for multinational companies, were self made and not linked to global financial turmoil.

"It would be easy to ... talk about external factors and global financial problems. But I want to be clear, in my view this is an internal BT operational matter and something that we haven't delivered as we should."

The 44-year-old Scot, promoted to the chief executive post in June, was hailed as a high-flying insider who would take a closer look at details and costs than Verwaayen had done.

Livingston fully delivered on Friday, talking honestly about the work that was needed within the network services unit and pledging to continue being "pretty hands on" in his approach.

While some of the decision making failed to convince all of the audience, the honest approach did earn praise.