Relations between Telegraph executives and Mr Desmond broke down earlier this year

Relations between Telegraph executives and Mr Desmond broke down earlier this year.But Mr Desmond announced yesterday: “In the Barclays we have found like-minded business people with whom we can work. This will be a strong partnership between two private companies ensuring the long-term success of the plant.”It is understood that Murdoch MacLennan, the newly appointed chief executive of the Telegraph group, was key to the negotiations. He is a former managing director of Associated Newspapers and previously ran its printing division. He is thought to have similar views on running West Ferry to those of Mr Desmond..

John Laing, the support services group that abandoned housebuilding to chase the more lucrative public/private pound, yesterday posted a sharp rise in interim profits, beating City forecasts. The Barclay brothers won the bid battle for the newspaper in June and began talks with Mr Desmond to stave off an acrimonious legal battle over the ownership of West Ferry. Sir Frederick and Sir David Barclay, the new owners of the Telegraph, yesterday brokered a vital peace treaty over the West Ferry printing press where the newspaper is produced – securing the continuation of a partnership with its co-owner, Richard Desmond.
Mr Desmond, the maverick owner of the Express newspapers, had threatened to take over the whole of the printing business using a clause that gave him rights to full ownership after the Telegraph was sold. Mr Turner said all parts of the pallets business were improving after closing Chep’s global operations in Florida, and cutting 350 jobs in Europe. It has also closed the head office of its waste management unit, Cleanaway, in London, and moved control of Brambles’ business to its Sydney headquarters.Cleanaway, the waste management division where Brambles derives 23 per cent of earnings, saw profits drop 7 per cent..

But a growth in sales in the second half saw Chep Americas increase its operating profits by 89 per cent in the six months to the end of June.Karl Green, an analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, said: “The real surprise is the cash flow, which was double our estimate with strength in every line – capital expenditure was 15 per cent below forecast at £344m, the working capital inflow was double last year’s number and net debt was 12 per cent below forecasts at £1.3bn.”Free cash flow at the company was £249m, an increase of £157m on the previous year. Chep, its biggest division, had expanded too rapidly in the US and lost track of its stock. It has since undergone a large-scale revamp, including the launch of a new pricing structure, which led to high restructuring costs in the first half. The business is performing well in the early part of the financial year, and this, together with our focus on further operational improvements, is expected to form the basis for good progress in 2005,” Mr Turner said.Brambles has undergone two years of falling profits following news from the US that some 14 million of its pallets disappeared and a costly restructuring of the company.

Brambles Industries, the services group that has struggled to live down mislaying 14 million of its distinctive blue pallets in 2002, yesterday cheered investors with a 7 per cent rise in underlying annual profits and confirmation of a turnaround in its business.
The upbeat statement from David Turner, the chief executive of the Anglo-Australian group that is the world’s largest pallets supplier, caused shares to jump 11 per cent to 242.5p.Lower raw-material costs, as well as improving durability of its pallets, have combined with a rise in sales, lifting pre-tax profits to £307m. Operating profits in the second half rose 41 per cent on the first half of the year, and sales over the year were up 7 per cent.”We are targeting continued generation of free cash flow as the concentration on value management continues across Brambles. Charles Schwab, the 67-year-old who founded the company, replaced Mr Pottruck after the company had suffered a three-year decline in revenues.Schwab said it had made a “strategic decision” to focus on “serving individual investors and independent financial advisors who work with them”.As part of the deal, UBS will handle Schwab’s stock and options trading for eight years.. Four years ago it paid $11.5bn for Paine Webber, the fourth-largest brokerage in the US at the time. Last year it added part of ABN’s brokerage for $250m to expand its hedge fund business.The sale by Schwab marks an end to a troubled period for the company, coming a month after the chief executive of the brokerage, David Pottruck, was ousted.