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UK's Daily Mail group to sell off regional papers
London: In a move that has shocked the media industry in the UK, Lord Rothermere, the chairman of Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT), yesterday announced plans to sell off the company's regional newspaper division. As per the company's plan, most of the proceeds from the planned sale, estimated at £1.5bn, will be returned to shareholders.

The Rothermere family started the company in 1896 with the launch of the Daily Mail, and its regional interests include the Leicester Mercury and the Bristol Evening Post. The two papers date back 75 years and form its Northcliffe division.

Lord Rothermere, 37, who has been chairman since 1998 and the fourth member of the family to run the company, clarified that DMGT would go on owning its Associated Newspapers division that houses the company's national titles, the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and the Evening Standard in London.

"The group remains fully committed to the continued growth and development of Associated Newspapers. Its titles are at the heart of DMGT and will continue to be so," Lord Rothermere said in a statement.

The company insisted the move was not a reaction to the threat of the internet. In the face of huge growth in web advertising, many in the media industry are pessimistic about the prospects for newspapers, especially those, such as regional titles, that are heavily reliant on classified ads.

Company officials however put the move down to a downturn in the economy, saying that the slow down had resulted in less recruitment.
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British Airways to axe 35 per cent managerial jobs
London: British Airways is to axe more than one-third of the airline's management in one of the most ruthless downsizing move ever witnessed in the aviation industry.

Almost 600 senior and middle managers, representing 35 per cent of the total management force, face the chop in a £50m cost-cutting plan over the next three years. BA says the move will bring the number of senior managers down by 50 per cent, from 414 now to 207 by March 2008, while there would be a 30 per cent reduction in middle managers from 1,301 to 911 over the same period.

BA has denied that the management job cuts were designed to soften up the airlines unions for the wider redundancy programme due to be announced in February, which will cover the airline's entire 45,000 staff.

The BA chief executive Willie Walsh said, "I don't think they will come as a significant surprise to people within BA. We are cutting out things that slow the business down. Walsh said the £50m of savings formed part of the £300m cost-reduction programme BA announced two years ago. The efficiency plan due to be unveiled in February will be much more ambitious and could involve up to 3,000 job losses, with parts of the workforce cut by up to 15 per cent.
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RIM served a double blow
Virginia, USA: A U.S. federal judge has ruled that Research In Motion Ltd. does not have an enforceable settlement agreement with NTP Inc. The judge also denied RIM's request to stay proceedings in the long-running patent infringement suit while the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office completes a review of the contested claims.

The rulings are a double blow for Waterloo, Ont.-based RIM, which now has little leverage left to use against NTP in any settlement talks. In March, RIM said it had reached an agreement to pay NTP US$450mn, after a jury ruled it had infringed on several patents. That accord fell through in June and analysts have speculated that NTP may now seek as much as US$1bn to settle.

NTP has said it will seek an injunction against BlackBerry products and services in the U.S., RIM's largest market.
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US hurricanes to sink Lloyd's of London by a record £2.9bn
London: The hurricanes that battered the United States this year have caused the largest ever insured loss to be sustained by Lloyd's of London. The losses are also likely to push the insurance market into the red in 2005.

Lloyd's announced yesterday it was raising its estimate for the losses caused by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma to £2.9bn, which will surpass the £1.9bn loss Lloyd's suffered following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre.

In spite of the possibility of a loss in 2005, Lloyd's announced yesterday that it would increase its underwriting capacity next year in anticipation that the price of insurance will rise. Lloyd's officials said that 42 of the 62 syndicates that underwrite the market had applied to revise their business plans and a projected 7% reduction in capacity had become a 7% increase.
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