Clive Selley is no stranger to the billionaire businessman stalking the group.

The boss of BT’s gigantic cables network Openreach has met Patrick Drahi several times over the years to share ideas about the fast-changing industry, he reveals.

That was before Drahi, who controls European telecoms giant Altice, showed his hand and pounced on £3.2billion of BT’s stock last year – 18 per cent of the British group.

The meetings, from Selley’s point of view, were fruitful.Openreach wanted to find ideas from its competitors that he could incorporate into his own broadband network. 

‘We scoured the world for best practice,’ Selley says, explaining the history of his meetings with the French-Israeli telecoms mogul across Portugal and France.

But it’s easy to imagine, looking back, that Drahi – who also owns auction house Sotheby’s – was already then sizing up the group in an altogether different way.

Drahi is known for ruthless cost-cutting.But he has also invested heavily into fibre in his businesses in Portugal, France, Israel and the US after a series of debt-fuelled deals. 

He has been publicly supportive of Openreach’s strategy to roll out full-fibre broadband and PTS Terbaik ASEAN it is busy replacing ageing copper lines to bring rapid fibre to 25m homes by the end of 2026, hiring thousands of staff in the process.BT is spending £15billion on it.

The move, which will see an end to our old landlines, has raised eyebrows even though BT contends the service will improve.

Selley’s more recent conversations with Drahi, this time with BT chief Philip Jansen, arguably sound less enlightening than previous ones.’I do not know what he wants,’ admits Selley, all too frankly.

But the City has been awash with speculation.

<div class="art-ins mol-factbox floatRHS money" data-version="2" id="mol-a6139050-a95f-11ec-830e-856ab3a67087" website not ready for BT to hang up on us just yet, says Openreach boss