MANAGERS at BT’s Global Services division face a cut in bonuses for the financial year just ended after it failed to meet targets.

A memo to staff from François Barrault, Global Services’ chief executive, says the business “not only fell short of our revenue target by well over £100m but also failed to meet our commitments on Ebitda [earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation], being more than £50m adrift”.

Barrault’s message to staff is sharply at odds with the rosy picture of Global Services given to investors by Ben Verwaayen, BT’s chief executive, at the company’s annual results in May.

He drew attention to Global Services’ “excellent” results, noting it had been successful in winning billions of pounds worth of new contracts. Global Services, which provides and manages IT and communications services for multinationals, is the fastest growing of BT’s businesses.

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Barrault’s memo goes on to say while bonuses would still be paid, they would be cut, except for staff on “sales-pay plans”. A chart accompanying the memo indicates cuts of between 5% and 6% across a range of salaries from £30,000 to £60,000. The recalculated bonuses ranged from £2,887 to £11,088. “I am deeply disappointed, as I know you will be also, that this has been necessary. It was a tough decision, but ultimately we all have to take the consequences for missed targets,” he said.

The memo was sent on June 4, three weeks after Verwaayen’s results presentation.

Barrault has been head of Global Services for only two months. He was the deputy there to Andy Green, and elevated in a management reshuffle. Green was promoted to chief executive of strategy and operations.

Green is seen as a potential successor to Ben Verwaayen, BT’s chief executive, along with a number of other internal candidates including Ian Livingston, head of BT retail.

At the same time as he was handed his new role, Green was given shares worth £535,000 as a “retention bonus”, designed to encourage him to stay for at least another two years to oversee a major restructuring of the group.

Green’s bonus has irked some employees at Global Services, who point out their bonus cuts were performance-related, while Green’s retention payment does not have a performance link.

But BT said yesterday that Green had shared the pain: his annual performance-related bonus had fallen from £750,000 in the 2005-6 financial year to just £217,000 last year. “Andy Green also faced a reduction in bonus as a result of the missed targets,” a BT spokesman said.

The spokesman added that the targets referred to in the memo were internal. “The performance of Global Services exceeded external targets, but we set very tough internal targets and if they are not met we act accordingly,” he said.

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