In September Emap sold a 19 per cent interest in Metal Bulletin

In September Emap sold a 19 per cent interest in Metal Bulletin, the business publishing information group, for £32.6m. The net assets being sold total £200,000.
“As we focus the group on specific and larger markets with potential for growth, we are rationalising the portfolio of our media businesses,” said Kevin Hand, Emap chief executive.
In July, Emap said it would increase new product investment to £30m, including £10m for on-line sites. The acquisition, which is expected to be earnings enhancing in the first full year, includes seven related exhibitions and events.
“The Emap titles are a good complement to our existing portfolio,” said David Gilbertson, Informa’s chief executive. “They’ll fit well into the areas we serve, without duplicating anything.”
The acquisition also includes Liner Shipping Network, an electronic information service distributed to subscribers over the Internet. It provides time-critical news and information about international container vessels and the freight industry.
In the year to March, the acquired businesses generated £2.8m in operating profit, before attributed overheads, on sales of £12.5m. EMAP, the magazine publisher and radio broadcaster, yesterday raised its proceeds from disposals in recent months to £85m with the sale of 13 business magazines for £28m in cash to Informa Group, the business publisher whose titles include Lloyds List, the insurance and shipping daily newspaper.

The titles being acquired by Informa range from monthly business magazines Insurance Age and Containerisation International to weekly publications International Freighting Weekly and Fishing News.

EMAP, the magazine publisher and radio broadcaster, yesterday raised its proceeds from disposals in recent months to £85m with the sale of 13 business magazines for £28m in cash to Informa Group, the business publisher whose titles include Lloyds List, the insurance and shipping daily newspaper. In the event that BT terminates the contract before then, or that the company is taken over, Sir Iain will receive the higher of £600,000 or the current year’s on-target bonus together with the previous year’s annual bonus.
The payment is bound to prompt allegations of “fat-cat” pay in some quarters, but it was defended by one telecoms consultant as “cheap at the price”.
The consultant, who did not wish to be identified, said that Sir Iain could have earned “millions a year” from consultancy, advice and directorships, such is the demand for top telecommunications expertise in the United States and Europe.
Earlier this week it emerged that William Esprey, chief executive of the US long-distance carrier Sprint, would be entitled to “golden parachute” share options worth $470m (£290m) as a result of the recently agreed takeover by MCI WorldCom.
BT is expected soon to announce details of a new US-style incentive and share-option scheme for top executives after a series of top-level departures said by one insider to amount to a “brain drain”.
The latest loss is James Swingewood, director of Internet and multimedia services at British Telecom.
Established telecoms players with old-fashioned pay structures are finding it increasingly difficult to compete for or retain up-and-coming talent against start-up enterprises that are offering the prospects of multi-million pound enrichment.. “Sir Iain has been taking a back seat to Sir Peter Bonfield for some time now.”
The new contract, which became available for public inspection yesterday, will end persistent speculation that Sir Iain might eventually succeed Lord Younger as chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland.
Still only 56 years of age, Sir Iain is understood to have agreed to stay on in part to help provide continuity for the group’s recently formed and strategically crucial joint venture with AT&T of America, called Concert.
Under the terms of the venture, which pools the two companies’ international business telecommunications interests, Sir Iain will remain chairman of Concert for the next 18 months, after which he will be succeeded by AT&T’s Michael Armstrong.
It was felt inappropriate for such an important position to be held by someone who was not also chairman of BT.
Board members also took the view that it would be wrong to lose an executive of Sir Iain’s standing and expertise, given the intense competition for leading talent that has developed in this fast-growing industry.
Directors have agreed to pay Sir Iain a “terminal bonus” of £600,000 if he stays in the position until July 2002. SIR IAIN VALLANCE is to stay on as chairman of British Telecom for a further two years after his planned retirement date in July under a new contract that will eventually entitle him to a controversial £600,000 “terminal bonus”.

Sir Iain’s salary for the two-and-a-half day a week job is also to be increased from £275,000 to £325,000 a year.
News of the extended chairmanship, unanimously approved by the board earlier this week, is likely to receive a mixed reaction in the City.
Sir Iain is widely respected among investors and analysts for his transformation of BT from an inefficient domestic monopoly into one of the world’s leading global telecommunications players.
However, with 12 years under his belt either as chairman and chief executive – or more recently as part-time chairman – some analysts believe it may be time for a change.
A more common view is that the partnership of Sir Iain as part-time chairman and Sir Peter Bonfield as chief executive is working relatively well, and that it would make little sense to rock the boat at this stage.
“This is not another Marks & Spencer, where Sir Richard Greenbury’s continued position as chairman was plainly inappropriate,” said one fund manager. SIR IAIN VALLANCE is to stay on as chairman of British Telecom for a further two years after his planned retirement date in July under a new contract that will eventually entitle him to a controversial £600,000 “terminal bonus”. On a pre-tax basis, BA made a profit of £240m for the half year, compared with £385m last year, but £191m of this was due to the disposal of its stake in the Galileo ticket reservations system and aircraft sales.
Stripping out £42m of redundancy costs, a £62m charge for re-translation of yen-denominated borrowings and a £14m profit on asset disposals, Mr Ayling said that underlying profits in the second quarter were £132m – down by a more modest 46 per cent on the previous year.
Mr Ayling said that BA would use British Midland’s entry into the Lufthansa-led Star Alliance to argue for a level playing field if and when it resubmits its alliance with American Airlines for approval.
The sale of a 20 per cent stake in British Midland to Lufthansa for around £110m is being announced this morning..

The salesforce now have a product and the confidence to sell it.”
Both the second quarter and interim figures were distorted by a series of one-off items. “From now on we will be investing in products, in people and in our customers,” Mr Ayling added.
While 1,000 management and back-office jobs have gone since August as part of a further £225m cost-cutting plan, there will be be no reduction in front-line staff.
Although a number of analysts had pencilled in a dividend cut, Mr Ayling said there had been no serious discussion about reducing the payout based on current trading and BA’s confidence in the outlook.
Brokers are now forecasting a bottom-line loss of £160m to £180m for the year and losses at the operating level of about £230m for the second half.
But Chris Tarry of Commerzbank, a bull of the stock, said: “Step by step, people are becoming clearer about BA’s strategy, how it will be delivered and what that means. Other airlines were now following the lead of BA and cutting back on capacity growth, while the UK economy was strengthening and South-East Asia was improving fast.
In a message aimed as much at BA’s 65,000 staff, Mr Ayling said that the target of £1bn of cost savings had now been achieved under the airline’s business efficiency plan and employees could look forward to an era of investment. But Mr Ayling said its strategy of cutting capacity and concentrating on business class passengers was starting to pay off. “Everyone is paid by results and these results are encouraging,” he added.
He was speaking as BA unveiled an 83 per cent decline in pre-tax profits from £240m to £40m for the July to September period but reassured investors by maintaining the interim dividend at 5.1p.
BA said that the “glut of low fares” which had affected it so severely during the summer would continue to hit profitability over the winter months.
But the BA chairman, Lord Marshall, said the prospects for next summer gave it grounds for “cautious optimism”.