BMG: COMPANY AT THE CROSSROADS?

Richard Griffiths seemed remarkably calm as he took his place at the annual Silver Clef charity lunch last Friday, less than 24 hours after being told that he was no longer president of BMR Europe. But there was only one word to describe the reaction of friends and colleagues: shock.

It was a natural reaction since Griffiths has shaped the UK company totally in his own image, and has been enjoying a streak of success across Europe, most recently with Cheeky artists Dido and now Faithless. Having produced best-yet UK results, he had not been in the European job long enough for his performance to be judged.

Perhaps inevitably one early reaction has been to "blame it on the Germans". This would be wrong, not to say xenophobic, for it is not simply a question of a German company replacing an outsider with one of its own. Set in the context of the executive turmoil that has plagued the company in the past year, there is a more fundamental question of how much Bertelsmann really wants to escape from ...