Key Points
- Verizon and BT will merge their international enterprise operations into a 50:50 joint venture
- The venture will serve 3,000+ customers across 180+ countries at about $4 billion in annual revenue
- Verizon will pay BT a $625 million equalization payment to balance the contributed assets
- Martijn Blanken is CEO-designate; the deal is expected to close in 2027
Two legacy telecom giants are pooling their international arms rather than fighting over them. Verizon and Britain's BT announced a 50:50 joint venture on Monday that merges their international enterprise operations into a single company serving more than 3,000 multinational customers across over 180 countries, with roughly $4 billion in combined annual revenue.
The new venture folds BT International together with Verizon's international enterprise wireline arm — the units that sell secure global connectivity to large corporations. Both parents will hold equal voting rights, but the value each side contributes is not equal: Verizon will make a $625 million equalization payment to BT to balance the books, a tell that BT brought the bigger international book to the table. Martijn Blanken is the CEO-designate, and the deal is expected to close in 2027, subject to regulatory approvals.
The logic is defensive. Selling worldwide connectivity to multinationals is a scale game, and neither Verizon nor BT had quite enough of it alone to compete with the hyperscalers and global carriers swallowing that market; combining gives the venture reach neither could justify building. It is the same consolidation instinct reshaping the rest of the communications business, on the same day that Comcast moved to split off NBCUniversal and Sky and unwind its own empire — legacy operators redrawing their boundaries as the ground shifts under them, one carving up, the other teaming up — part of the same churn that recently put Roku in sale talks.
Source: BT Group, Verizon, The Register
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