Reliance Industries Limited (NSEI:RELIANCE) is weighing a bid for UK telecoms group, BT Group plc (LSE:BT.A), formerly British Telecom, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. With multiple shareholders in the mix — some 419 institutions own shares in the company — and with some strategic investors said to be open to cashing out if provided with the right offer, the sources cited above expect Reliance to make an unsolicited offer to buy into the company or even stake a claim to corner a controlling share. Alternatively, it may propose to partner networking or fibre optic arm Openreach and fund its expansion plans, even though the company had last month said it was shelving the earlier plans of roping in a financial or strategic joint venture partner to connect an additional 5 million homes.

BT said it would fund the expansion and roll out itself. The current market cap of BT Group, an FTSE 100 company, is $20.63 billion, as on November 26. If RIL were to take over BT, this will arguably be the largest outbound M&A involving any Indian corporate.

However, the sources mentioned above cautioned that these are early-stage deliberations and may not eventually fructify into a transaction. It is unclear if Ambani has met with the BT brass — CEO Philip Jansen and outgoing chairman Jan du Plessis. BT declined to comment on what it described as speculation.

However, when specifically asked if BT was open to inducting a strategic or financial partner for its fibre arm Openreach, the company spokesperson told ET, “Openreach remains a core, long-term, strategic asset for BT and is performing very well. Whilst we are always open to value creating options for BT, we are currently focussed on building fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) at pace, scale and at a low cost.” Mails sent to Reliance on Saturday did not receive any response till Sunday press time.