Article
City briefing
ARC stuck in microchip mire
Semiconductor designer ARC International said yesterday that sales levels remained stagnant and it would no longer give revenue forecasts. Shares in the company closed up 2p at 52.2p despite analyst concerns that the company might not break even until 2005.
ARC follows Parthus and Bookham in giving a cautious outlook on the microchip market. About 60 of the 290 staff face the axe after results showing a pre-exceptionals net loss of £6.1m for the quarter on revenues of £3.5m.
Amazon group to sue
A group of Amazon.com shareholders has filed a class action suit in the US district court for the southern district of New York against Morgan Stanley and its internet analyst Mary Meeker, charging them with issuing "false and misleading" statements on Amazon stock.
The suit, filed on behalf of Amazon shareholders who purchased shares between August 1 1998 and January 22 2001, claims that Morgan Stanley failed to keep a "Chinese wall" between its investment banking and equity research activities.
Air Canada cuts deeper
Air Canada said yesterday it will cut 4,000 jobs as part of a cost-reduction programme in the face of economic slowdown. The airline shed 3,500 staff late last year.
Scoot suffers 192 blow
Business directory service Scoot is likely to be dealt a blow by the decision of telecoms regulator Oftel to reform directory inquiries, scrapping the 192 number which Scoot uses for access to its services.
Scoot bought the right - for a nominal fee - to use freephone number 0800 192 192 from BT in 1995 and used it as a springboard for its Freepages service. Oftel seems likely to replace 192 with a five-digit number, starting 118, as an attempt to boost competition and bringing the UK in line with other European countries.
Scoot UK's chief commercial officer, Terry Martin, said the firm has contingency plans for 192 being scrapped but admitted the Oftel review had been a cause for concern.
DT pulls plug on free services
Deutsche Telekom is signalling an end to free content over mobile phones. T-Motion, the joint venture between Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile wireless business and internet service provider T-Online, is starting a series of subscription services for German mobile customers including games, news alerts and music, with similar services to customers of One2One next year.