Europe Intelligence Wire articles from November 2002

Europe Intelligence Wire archives from November 2002

On the move - Piper never calls tune at Trinity Mirror.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Ric Piper's high-profile move to Trinity Mirror as FD ended before it began. The former WS Atkins FD was asked not to start his new job following problems with Atkins' new billing and payroll system leading to a...

Movers & Shakers.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Keith Onslow has been appointed FD of public relations firm Harrison Cowley. He joins from Euphony Communications, where he was developing a strategy for the company's expansion into Europe. Age 38 ...

Insight - Building trust in PPP.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Byline: Anthony Harrington. One of the biggest challenges posed for the construction industry by the Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative is the need to break with its usual rush to litigation. In...

Lawyers fight for graduates.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Byline: Anthony Harrington. Each year, accountancy and law firms battle it out to get their pick of the nation's bright young things. So far, it has been a one-sided contest, and the accountants have done very...

Editor's letter - Nowhere is safe anymore.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) It's tempting to look at the collapse in Swedish-Swiss engineering group ABB and consider what would have happened if GEC had stuck with engineering and ABB had gone into telecoms. Either way, we have another name...

Where There's Life.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Byline: Peter Bartram. Troubled pensions provider Equitable Life is in the news again as it tries to buy off another group of dissatisfied former policyholders. The mutual has hardly been out of the...

Enron FD charged.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) The federal court has charged former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow with fraud, money laundering and conspiracy for his part in the accounting scandal that destroyed the company. If found guilty the charges carry a...

Companies bullish on debt.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) More than half of large UK companies are still bullish on the cost of debt, despite the worsening credit climate, says KPMG Transaction Services. The survey of 100 large UK PLCs showed 59% believe debt will not be...

Expense option supported.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Microsoft has signalled its support for booking share options as an expense, even though the company said the move would knock $2bn a year off its profits. The IASB is expected to issue a draft rule on 7 November...

Merger accounting ruse.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Many of the UK's largest companies are bending merger accounting rules, says financial reporting monitor Company Reporting. It argues that merger accounting, which is "appropriate for similar-sized companies......

Banking & finance - Banking collapse a possibility.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Byline: Jules Stewart. In banking, systemic risk is a label for ultimate disaster. So, when Douglas Flint, FD of the world's third biggest bank by market capitalisation, dared mention it at a recent...

Principles welcomed.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) The government has welcomed publication of a new statement by the Institutional Shareholders' Committee of principles setting out strengthened responsibilities of institutional shareholders and agents. Financial...

Directors at sea on risks.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Despite an increasingly aggressive regulatory environment, UK directors have little idea of the risks and liabilities they face. A study by the London School of Economics and law firm DLA discovered that almost a...

Call for accountant FDs.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) It should be a legal requirement for companies to appoint an FD with an accountancy qualification, says CIPFA. The public sector accountancy institute has made the recommendation to the Accountancy Foundation's...

Boards are all talk on soft issues.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Byline: Robert Bruce. Wherever you find a collision between theory and reality you find battered egos and broken businesses. This is what has happened over the issue of reputation risk. Everyone played lip...

Liars lose their jobs.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Ram Kumar, the Institutional Shareholder Services analyst who helped drive Hewlett Packard's acquisition of Compaq, has been sacked for lying on his CV that he had a law degree. Also, Ken Lonchar, CFO of IT...

Accountancy IT still fails.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Research published by the ICAEW reveals that failure rates of IT packages used by accountancy practices are still unacceptably high. Software packages with the worst results in the survey had failure rates of over...

Linux beats Windows.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Microsoft chief exec Steve Ballmer admitted at a London conference in October that Linux, the free open-source operating system, is becoming a serious threat to Microsoft's Windows platform. "We got beaten by...

Systems errors at WS Atkins.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Byline: Tom Berry. Vendors of large, integrated IT systems will tell you how well their technology can streamline and rationalise business processes. But an IT cock-up at support services company WS Atkins...

IT security - Briefing - IT jargon named and explained.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) The security of IT systems and websites is a major barrier to large-scale IT implementations. Any discussion of e-commerce, wireless networking, or maintaining a website or email system, must be accompanied by an...

Corporate Governance - Briefing - Ideas for Higgs Review.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) In the interests of keeping readers fully up-to-date with corporate governance issues as they develop, we summarise below some of the recommendations being made by various institutes to the Higgs review on the...

Tax - Briefing - VAT reclaim transition period introduced.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Byline: Peter Williams. Before July 1996, if a company discovered it had overpaid VAT to Customs, it had six years from the date on which the overpayment was made, or six years from the date on which the...

Financial Directions - Financial bites.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) "We have to start demonstrating a bit of growth... but we are lucky we are in a relatively protected sector." Garry Watts, FD of SSL International, the company which manufactures Durex condoms. Daily...

Financial Directions - Chancellor warned of looming tax shortfall.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Tax increase predicted The quarterly Ernst & Young ITEM club report has warned Gordon Brown that, due to a struggling global economy and a "structural decline" in tax revenues, he is running out of options to...

Extraordinary Items - Load of old holistics.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Here are a few extracts from a press release we received the other day about the "5th Annual Holistic Enterprise Forum", to be held in London on 30 October. "Putting People Before Profits: 'With just two weeks...

September as difficult as ever for equities.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Byline: Graeme Johnston. Economic background We suggested last month that September is traditionally a difficult month for equities, and 2002 was no exception. Global equities continued the slide that...

Extraordinary Items - Forbes predictions.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) The CFO Summit took place at The Belfry on 21-23 October, and star turn on the opening night was former US presidential candidate Steve Forbes, he of magazine fame. Forbes is famous for coming third in a...

Financial directions - Interest rates.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) There is no doubt that the health of the global economy remains at risk and it would be optimistic to expect anything more than a weak recovery. However, that is what current data, in our view, is indicating. ...

Extraordinary Items - Losing a mint.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) You might have thought that a business that makes money would be a business that makes money. Not so at the Royal Mint. The National Audit Office has issued a report on the coin manufacturer's declining financial...

Financial Directions - Directors worried by personal liability.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) An Eversheds survey* of 100 UK directors (including finance directors) in large PLCs has explored their key business and personal concerns. It found that half are worried by growing personal exposure to risk,...

IT Decisions - IT analysts - Analysts on the couch.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Byline: Gary Flood. Technology is expensive. Recent estimates put the amount spent on IT in the past 40 years at $10 trillion. Implementing a major, mission-critical IT system can easily cost six figures. But...

IT Decisions - IT consulting - Consulting feels the pinch.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Byline: Anthony Harrington. For FDs at blue chip corporations there has never been a better time to buy consultancy - considered purely from a price standpoint, that is. The sector is under pressure as never...

Briefing - Company Law - EC takeover directive revised.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) The European Commission has introduced a widely-expected revision of the Takeover Directive - the legislative proposal killed off by a single vote in the European Parliament last year after a 12-year gestation....

Corporate finance falls.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Two new quarterly surveys by KPMG Corporate Finance suggest a downturn in UK corporate finance activity. The value of large MBOs totalled GBP 2,640m for Q3 2002, a 45% drop in value from the previous quarter. The...

IT Decisions - Security - A safe option.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Byline: Tom Berry. Instances of security breaches of corporate IT systems are increasing dramatically. A recent PwC report* for the DTI found that 78% of large businesses suffered some form of breach in 2002,...

Financial Directions - Volatility of big business exposed.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) The study* by Ernst & Young and Oxford Metrica tracks share price movements of Global 1000 companies over the past five years and analyses why companies experience sudden, major losses or gains in market value....

Demergers - On track for long term value.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) When BT spun off its mobile phone operation, mmO2, last November, it must have hoped the move would be good for both parties. And the early signs were encouraging. mmO2 shares rose 5% on their first trading day...

IASB held up on technical issues.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Byline: Peter Williams. A year from now, the International Accounting Standards Board needs to have in place an accounting standard on financial instruments it can live with. That means it has to stay broadly...

Extraordinary Items - That's a bit Ric.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) FDs are having a difficult time of it these days. Michael Kayser might have been in the running for a prize for the shortest tenure as FD at one company, having resigned just four weeks after joining Amey. But...

Extraordinary Items - Markt down.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Anyone who's been emotionally or financially scarred by the dotcom boom and bust will benefit from the cathartic milestone that is soon to pass. German stock exchange Deutsche Borse is closing the Neuer Markt...

Working capital - Get to work on capital.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) It's remarkable that so many companies appear to be so bad at managing working capital. Earlier this year REL Consultancy calculated that European businesses were missing out on EUR65bn of profit purely because of...

The Financial Director Interview - The Apprentice.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) Byline: Tom Berry. A favourite question Financial Director has asked FDs and regulators over the last few months is to compare Enron's mammoth and broadly unintelligible 10K filing with HSBC's 300-page annual...

Budgeting - More of the same.
November 1, 2002... (From Financial Director) The latest Hyperion/Financial Director budgeting and strategic planning survey reveals that many FDs are reasonably comfortable with the value being derived from their systems, though they still feel there are...

Sutton to embark on PR firm buying spree.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Former BSMG Europe chairman Tim Sutton is returning to the PR scene with a multi-million pound war chest to fund the creation of a full-service European agency network through a mass acquisition spree. Sutton confirmed...

HP slashes global PR roster to three shops.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Byline: HOLLY WILLIAMS Computing giant HP - created earlier this year by the pounds 13bn merger of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq - is understood to have carved up its global PR business, slashing its roster from 50 to just...

Revenue rises for Omnicom as WPP figures show fall.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Byline: JOE LEPPER US-quoted marketing services giant Omnicom has shown a rise in the revenue of its PR businesses despite a continuing slump across the sector. The group's third quarter figures show a growth of...

Four wins brief as bmi cuts PR spend.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Byline: IAN HALL Airline bmi has hired Four Communications on a PR and public affairs brief following a cut to its external PR budget. The contract with incumbent agency Hill & Knowlton, which has handled this...

Beatwax scoops top campaign for Friends Reunited.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Byline: MARK JOHNSON Beatwax Communications' campaign for Friends Reunited won Campaign of the Year at this year's PRWeek Awards. The campaign, which also won the Technology campaign award, was praised by chairman...

Lexis handed Disney Stores remit.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Byline: IAN HALL Lexis PR has scooped the consumer PR remit for Disney Stores. The agency was appointed after a six-way pitch and begins its work immediately with a promotional drive to boost pre-Christmas sales. ...

Mitsubishi to review PR as Miles leaves 18-year post.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Byline: JOE LEPPER Mitsubishi Motors is to carry out a review of PR following the announcement that its media chief of 18 years is to leave. General manager of press and public affairs David Miles, who takes early...

Furner Communications gets Year of Disabled brief.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Furner Communications has been appointed to handle UK PR for the first European Year of Disabled People. The consultancy has been chosen by a UK Government-led national co-ordinating committee to work alongside...

Polaroid to stage pitch as in-house function is closed.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Instant camera firm Polaroid is staging a pitch for its consumer PR work as it shuts down its in-house PR function. PR and media manager Claire Wright, Polaroid's sole UK PR staff member, is leaving at the end of next...

STOP PRESS: Hutchison 3G head leaves.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) PUBLIC AFFAIRS: Hutchison 3G head of public policy Richard Rumbelow has 'left to look at other opportunities'. The firm's director of external relations Matt Peacock said Rumbelow left on an 'amicable basis' but would not...

STOP PRESS: Medicom launches Medicom PR.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) HEALTHCARE: Surrey-based Medicom International - the company that owns Medicom Excel, Medicom Publishing and Medicom Europe - today launches a PR arm, Medicom PR. Former Cohn & Wolfe executive vice-president and...

STOP PRESS: Cubitt Consulting snaps up OMV brief.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) FINANCIAL: Cubitt Consulting has snapped up the global financial, IR and corporate PR brief for OMV, Austria's former state-owned oil and gas business. OMV, which has a market cap of pounds 1.5bn, hired Cubitt after a...

STOP PRESS: New Media launches Mission.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) AGENCY LAUNCH: Soho-based marcoms firm New Media Industries has launched a PR and event management agency, Mission. It is headed by Nicola Quayle, who left Freud Communications, where she was an account director, one month...

STOP PRESS: Bell Pottinger hires director.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) PUBLIC AFFAIRS: Bell Pottinger Public Affairs has hired Malcolm Gooderham as an account director. Gooderham, who was chief media spokesman for Michael Portillo MP from 2000 to 2001, joins from Weber Shandwick, where he was...

STOP PRESS: Editor quits after three years.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) FINANCIAL: Nic Cicutti, editor of Financial Times personal finance website FTyourmoney, has quit after three years to become a freelance writer and PR consultant. The move coincides with the near conclusion of a redesign of...

STOP PRESS: Nelson Bostock lands datetheuk.com PR.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) CONSUMER: Nelson Bostock Communications has landed a remit to handle consumer and corporate PR for datetheuk.com, a start-up online dating service. Associate director Sue Skeats heads the account, reporting to Date the UK...

STOP PRESS: Mahseer appoints office head.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) TECH: Tech agency Mahseer has promoted Aysen Yilmaz to the newly created role of London office head. Formerly an account director, she has previously worked for Text 100 as an account director in San Francisco and as senior...

STOP PRESS: Drum appointed by Toad.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) CONSUMER: The Drum Consultancy has been appointed by vehicle aftercare firm Toad to promote its in-car multi media systems. Drum director Karen Hughes reports to Toad director Stuart Hall on the consumer, motoring, tech and...

STOP PRESS: Salesforce.com extends remit.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) TECH: San Francisco-based online customer-relationship management firm Salesforce.com has extended Lewis PR's remit as it prepares to launch in France, Italy, Benelux and Spain. Lewis has worked for Salesforce.com for two...

Brunswick picks up EMAP financial PR brief.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) City PR firm Brunswick has picked up the financial and corporate communications brief for FHM and Smash Hits owner Emap. The FTSE 100 publishing group, which also owns Heat magazine and radio networks Kiss and Magic, has...

Former journalist to join LA Fitness as comms chief.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Byline: IAN HALL Upmarket gym chain LA Fitness has hired a former journalist to beef up its communications. Carolynne Bull-Edwards, a former features editor at Shares Magazine, is due to take up a newly created head...

Butlins begins PR push to change its public image.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Byline: JOE LEPPER Butlins is launching a PR offensive to rid itself of its Hi-Di-Hi image. Sales and marketing director Marc Jones wants to see perceptions of Butlins altered to that of a 'modern, contemporary...

JP Morgan Fleming close to hiring agency for the UK.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Byline: HOLLY WILLIAMS US bank JP Morgan Chase & Co's asset management arm is pitching for strategic communications counsel for the first time in the UK. The investment management group - JP Morgan Fleming (JPMF) -...

Four agencies on shortlist for Unilever Impulse brief.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Four agencies are competing in an effort to land the PR remit for women's body-spray and anti-perspirant brand Impulse. Lever Faberge - the home and personal care business of Unilever which is behind Impulse - confirmed...

Group rebrand as OneMonday sells rights to its name.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Quoted PR group OneMonday, which owns global tech networks Text 100 and August.One Communications, is rebranding as Next Fifteen after selling its name to accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers. PwC bought the rights to...

Capital One sees agencies during tri-annual review.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Credit card group Capital One is seeing a number of financial agencies in a review of its entire UK PR business. The group, which has its headquarters in the US, has already seen credentials from around half a dozen City...

Farrington lands European Union's CSR Forum place.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Institute of Public Relations director-general Colin Farrington has been invited to sit on the European Union's Corporate Social Responsibility Forum - in a move the IPR believes provides recognition of the importance of PR...

Golin/Harris hires Wells as corp head in London division.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Byline: LYNNE ROBERTS Golin/Harris International has appointed David Wells as head of its corporate team in London. Reporting to MD Barry Leggetter, Wells will head the four-strong division, taking on responsibility...

Cow wins consumer remit for Yahoo! UK and Ireland.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Byline: HOLLY WILLIAMS Yahoo! UK and Ireland has ended months of discussions over its consumer PR support, hiring Cow after a five-way pitch. The internet portal began informal discussions with agencies nearly three...

New Star brings in FD for corp brief.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Aggressive UK fund manager New Star Asset Management has swapped City PR firms following The Maitland Consultancy's decision to resign the account, said to be worth up to pounds 1m. New Star - founded by John Duffield -...

Eversheds picks Synopsis to lead face-to-face PR.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Corporate law firm Eversheds has hired internal comms specialist Synopsis Communications to introduce a face-to-face communications process across its office network. Synopsis managing director Bill Quirke said the...

Razor appoints two senior consultants.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Byline: ANDY ALLEN Razor Public Relations - the agency set up by former board members of Countrywide Porter Novelli - has hired two new senior consultants in a bid to grow the business. Public affairs specialist...

Net security firm Symantec hands UK account to RSA.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Byline: IAN HALL Roger Staton Associates is to handle UK PR for global internet security firm Symantec. RSA was hired last week following a three-stage pitch against incumbent agency Harvard PR and two other...

PUBLIC SECT0R: Guide dog body in push for a fireworks bill.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Byline: ANDY ALLEN Guide Dogs for the Blind is launching a lobbying push this week calling for tough new laws restricting the use of fireworks. Matt Grainger, the charity's public affairs manager, said the move...

PUBLIC SECTOR: Councils step up lobbying over 'inaccurate' Census.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Byline: IAN HALL Councils are stepping up their lobbying of the Government to revise what they see as 'inaccurate' 2001 Census results. Results of the Census, run by the Office for National Statistics, were revealed...

PUBLIC SECTOR: Information Commissioner hires PR firm.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) The Office of the Information Commissioner has hired Citigate Communications for media relations consultancy and strategic comms work - the first time it has taken a PR agency on board on a retainer basis. Mark Sharman,...

PUBLIC SECTOR: Liberty prepares PR offensive over defendants' past.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) Civil Rights Group Liberty is gearing up for a major lobbying drive against Government plans to allow courts to disclose defendants' past records to juries in criminal cases. The plans are part of the Criminal Justice...

PUBLIC SECTOR: Met to learn from NYPD experience at police PR event.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) A New York Police Department PR chief, with first hand experience in dealing with the 11 September terrorist attack, is to speak at the Association of Police Public Relations Officers' annual conference next week. NYPD...

PUBLIC SECTOR BRIEFS: RSPCA steps up airguns ban.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) RSPCA: Animal welfare charity the RSPCA is stepping up its lobbying push to ban teenagers from using airguns. It is urging MPs to back moves by Kent MP Jonathan Shaw to ban the unsupervised use of airguns by under-17s. The...

PUBLIC SECTOR BRIEFS: Council to finalise details.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) RESEARCH: The Economic and Social Research Council will this month finalise the details of its PR training programme. The scheme - run by associate director of press and PR Iain Stewart, who joined the ESRC last month - aims...

PUBLIC SECTOR BRIEFS: Joint Campaign raises cancer awareness.
November 1, 2002... (From PR Week) CHARITY: A joint campaign by Macmillan Cancer Relief and the Roy Castle Cancer Foundation launches this month to raise awareness of early diagnosis of lung cancer. The PR push is backed by an ad campaign showing male and...