Clearly they cannot simultaneously entertain both scenarios he said

“Clearly they cannot simultaneously entertain both scenarios,” he said.He said the US was suffering from an excess of capacity and lack of demand rather than deflation, which was a monetary phenomenon.. AIM, the London Stock Exchange’s junior market for growth companies, is introducing a new fast-track applications procedure to attract Nasdaq-listed stocks to London. The requirement to produce such a document is already waived for companies listed on the London Stock Exchange – many of whom have moved down from the main list to AIM during the bear market to save on fees and to reflect their reduced market capitalisations.Nine overseas exchanges will be included in the “designated markets” scheme, including Nasdaq, the New York Stock Exchange, Deutsche B?, Euronext and Australian and Toronto exchanges. AIM has already had some success in attracting overseas companies, particularly from the English-speaking world where it is concentrating its marketing efforts.

More than a dozen Australian mining firms have already taken a listing.AIM was established in 1995 as a market for smaller or growth companies and has grown to accommodate 700 companies.. Vodafone’s chief executive, Sir Christopher Gent, insisted yesterday there was no need to write down the value of the company’s third-generation mobile phone licences as he announced that pre-tax losses – still a massive £6.2bn – had more than halved in his last results presentation to the City. it was a billion over the top of what we wanted to pay and, in fact, what we wanted to pay was substantially less than that,” Sir Christopher said.Vodafone shelled out about £13bn for its 3G licences altogether, after paying about £6bn for each of its licences in the UK and Germany. Rivals, including mmO2 in the UK and the Deutsche Telekom-owned T-Mobile, have already taken dramatic write-downs to the value of their 3G licences.But Sir Christopher insisted that Vodafone did not need to follow suit, noting that the operator generated £1bn more cash than mmO2 and also made far higher operating profits than that company in the UK. “We are the market leader, they [mmO2] are the number three,” he said, adding: “It’s not about Gent determining one thing or another …

it’s a bottom-up review [of the value of assets].”Shares in Vodafone closed down 3p at 122.5p after the mobile phone operator announced a £6.2bn pre-tax loss for the year to 31 March. In the preceding year it was £13.5bn in the red, the UK’s biggest ever corporate loss.After stripping out a £14.1bn goodwill amortisation charge and a £581m exceptional charge, Vodafone turned out a profit of £8.4bn for last year. Turnover grew 33 per cent to £30.4bn.Vodafone also announced yesterday that Ken Hydon, its finance director, would be the next director to retire and that he would go at the company’s AGM in July of 2005.Despite the impending board change and anxiety over third-generation services, Sir Christopher said he still believed Vodafone’s prospects remained bright. He estimated the global market for mobile services, in terms of customers, could double over the next 10 years from about the 1 billion level now.

Vodafone ended the year with 119.7 million customers worldwide.The company said yesterday it would launch its 3G service in the UK before the end of next March – leaving open the possibility that it could be delayed beyond Christmas.Julian Horn-Smith, the chief operating officer, said the 3G service would build on the company’s Vodafone live! service, which allows users to send and receive photos. That service now has about 1.4 million users and has pushed up average revenues per user, or Arpu, by about seven to 10 per cent.Sir Christopher, who has come in for heavy criticism over his pay and bonuses – he received £3.78m last year, including his pension fund increase – used the results presentation to take a final swing at his critics. Comments about his pay package, he said, were “coloured by envy rather than aspiration”. “The money I get will be earned,” he said.Sir Christopher said, however, that he would not be getting a pay rise in the current year and noted that while he might be eligible for a bonus based on short-term performance, he would not get any kind of “golden goodbye”. He is scheduled to leave the company at the end of December.Sir Christopher said yesterday he had three particular projects in mind for his retirement.