There has been endless speculation these last three months that we’d be forced into

“There has been endless speculation these last three months that we’d be forced into a balance sheet restructuring and perhaps a debt-for-equity swap,” he said, adding: “I cannot promise you today that such an event [a debt-for-equity swap] will not take place.”Once NTL and Telewest have carried out their respective balance sheet restructurings, the pair are expected to merge their operations.. It was beaten by Euronext, the Continental cross-boarder exchange.Ms Furse’s package included an award of 42,513 shares and 3430 options exercisable at 365p before 2011. She now holds 500,330 options, giving her a paper profit of about £700,000 and a total of 221,813 shares worth almost £1m. The LSE’s latest annual report shows that Ms Furse received a £26,000 pension contribution.

In the previous year, which included just six weeks of Ms Furse’s tenure, she received £107,000 including a £50,000 bonus.Don Cruickshank, the chairman, was paid £351,000 for the year to March and received no bonus. In 2001, Mr Cruickshank was paid nearly twice as much, taking home £683,000, including a £250,000 bonus. The LSE said the dramatic reduction in Mr Cruickshank’s pay reflected the fact that he had to do without a chief executive for much of 2001 but has now stepped down to non-executive chairman, on a three-day week.Executive directors Jonathan Howell and Martin Wheatley managed to more than double their salaries by being paid bonuses of £320,000 and £300,000 respectively.The LSE defended Ms Furse’s pay package, saying it did not depend on whether the institution managed to do a major corporate deal. It said in a statement: “We have a clear and transparent remuneration policy. Executives’ bonuses reflect their success in exceeding financial performance targets and objectives.”Ms Furse is under pressure to produce a deal this year because many in the City believe the LSE cannot survive in the long term as an independent body. The LSE reported a 22 per cent rise in operating profit to £70.5m and saw its share price climb from its debut price of 370p to 458p on the back of speculation that it could become a takeover target.. Stock markets staged a recovery on both sides of the Atlantic yesterday, buoyed by positive corporate news from the US and fresh signs that the UK economy is emerging from a period of stagnation.

Sentiment was helped by the latest Lloyds TSB/Institute of Management Services productivity index showing the biggest rise since October 1999. The performance of both the manufacturing and the service sectors improved. Trevor Williams, the chief economist at Lloyds TSB’s, said that the results chimed with better-than-expected manufacturing output figures last week and suggested that corporate profits should begin to recover in the fourth quarter. In the US, bargain hunters helped the technology-driven Nasdaq Composite index closed up 3.2 per cent at 1553. The Dow, meanwhile, ended 2.2 per cent higher at 9,687 points and the more broadly based Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained 2.8 per cent to close at 1,036 points.Despite the temporary respite for London shares, CSFB, Merrill Lynch, HSBC, NatWest and SG Securities have all either lowered their year-end forecasts or are in the throes of revising their numbers.Merrill Lynch, one of the more bearish banks, said that even its year-end target for the FTSE 100 on 5,500 might prove too ambitious.

CSFB is preparing a second downward revision having already cut its forecast from 5,900 to 5,700 and NatWest expects to slice 300 points off its forecast of 5,800.Steve Russell, equity analyst at HSBC, said his bank’s forecast of 5,700 could be slashed to 5,200 if corporate profits continued to disappoint.. The Swiss food giant Nestl?esterday won an important strategic victory in the global ice-cream wars, scooping up control of America’s largest ice-cream maker Dreyer’s to edge Unilever out of the number one slot in the world’s biggest ice-cream market. The deal will create a company with a stock market value of $4bn (£2.8bn) that will dominate the US premium ice-cream market, home to the world’s most voracious ice-cream eaters.Nestl?which is seeking to boost sales by diversifying into faster growing markets such as bottled water, pet foods and ice-cream, will receive 55 million new Dreyer’s shares, giving it 67 per cent of the enlarged business, which will retain its Nasdaq listing. It previously owned 23 per cent of Dreyer’s.Analysts said the deal, which is subject to Dreyer’s shareholder approval, would put pressure on Unilever, the Dove soap to Flora margarine food group, which bought the Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream brand in 2000 for $326m.