LONDON: Telcoms major BT Group Plc. has tied up with three content providers to propel its BT Television Services. The company, which has announced its plans to get into media in a bid way, said it is signing up BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of BBC, Warner Music and Paramount, the Viacom group’s film studio, for its soon-to-be launched on-demand service.

BT Television Services chief executive Dan Marks promised a number of similar announcements in the coming weeks and months, which will indicate the scale the proposed activities. He also said the company will sign up some of the major Hollywood studios, other broadcasters and “all major record labels” for the service. All the tie-ups will be revenue-sharing arrangements, he said.

He said the service will target millions of British homes that do not subscribe to pay-TV.

“Our view of the market is that everybody will have a digital TV and the question is how many will be using a subscription service. There are 78 million TV sets in the U.K., of which 11 million are connected to a pay-TV service, which leaves a lot of TV sets,” he said.

The service, to be launched next autumn, provides for customers to choose television, music and films to watch at their convenience. It also intends to offer a broadcast television service with 30 channels to be supplied via a Freeview box. Users can either purchase selected items to view or listen or buy a subscription for unlimited use. The company has not disclosed its pricing model.

The customers will also have to buy the set-top box, which will include an 80 Mb hard drive to save programmes and music. Most probably Philips will make the box, which will be attached to a BT telephone line to deliver the content. The box will have a digital terrestrial tuner to access Freeview programmes.

BT Group plans to take on pay television channels NTL and BSkyB in a big way.

The company said it expects BT Retail to continue with the last quarter’s return to profit growth and deliver an increased profit for the full year. It expects to have cost savings of 400-500 million pounds over three years by focusing on more cost effective use of online sales, service and billing as well as improved processes.

The company has decided to offer free calls throughout the festive holiday to any landline in 30 different countries. It is also reducing the rate of Broadband Talk, which allows customers to use a normal phone, rather than the PC, by up to 50 per cent to 2 pounds a month for evening and weekend calls or 7 pounds a month for anytime calls. Its evening and weekend call packages are completely free.

BT said it is evolving a concept of a broadband BT hub in homes which will enable wireless networking for all the family’s computer systems, next generation TV, voice calls over the internet and five different voice channels that can be used simultaneously. The hub will also enable monitoring services, such as security for the home as well as greater protection for data.

The company is also establishing a network of 8,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in the country to offer opportunities to work and play. The recent tie-up with Nintendo to allow gamers to interact and play using a Wi-Fi link is an example.

LONDON – Pop Star Robbie Williams has accepted libel damages from publishers who had claimed that he was a homosexual. The exact amount that is being paid to him was not disclosed.

The defendants were MGN Limited, a company that publishes of The People and Northern & Shell PLC, the publisher of Star and Hot Stars magazines. The homosexual claim was first made by The People, which is a Sunday tabloid. Both the magazines agreed to publish immediate apologies to the British pop star and said that they would pay up the required amount. “I accept that the allegations … were untrue. The defendant apologizes to the claimant and expresses its regret for the injury and distress caused,” said Zoe Norden, a lawyer who represented the publications in the court.

Williams himself was not present in the court, but his attorney, Tom Shields QC, emphatically stated, “Mr Williams is not, and never has been, homosexual.” The alleged article was published in August last year and claimed that Robbie Williams was about to deceive the public with pretentious claims of heterosexuality.

The article titled “Robbie’s secret gay lover”, alleged that Williams had numerous sordid encounters with total strangers. “It claimed that he had enticed a stranger into a toilet at a club in Manchester where the two men performed a sex act on each other and where Mr Williams requested that stranger to engage in a further sex act,” Shields told the court.

The same allegations were printed in Star and Hot Stars magazine in September. “It was also alleged that a year later Mr Williams had tried to persuade the same man, and then that man’s friend, to engage in similar conduct at another Manchester club and that, when rebuffed, he had gone on to engage in a sexual encounter with another stranger in the streets behind the club,” Shields added.

The court also heard that the magazines were guilty of publishing untruths and would cover the legal fees incurred by Robbie Williams.

LONDON: Britain will double its spending on stem cell research to 100 million pounds in the next two years. Chancellor of the exchequer Gordon Brown said the funds will be invested in pre-commercial aspects of the research. This is in order to retain the lead the country has established in this controversial medical field.

Britain is considered as having one of the best regulatory systems in place for the research, which is expected to open up new treatment methods for serious illnesses such as diabetes, spinal cord injuries and Alzheimer’s disease.

Speaking at the Advancing Enterprise Conference, Brown said Britain should be the world’s number one centre for genetic and stem cell research, building on its world leading regulatory regime in this area. “I can today announce that we are taking forward a new public-private partnership to invest in pre-commercial aspects of stem cell research and co-ordinate future research,” he said.

The proposed government funding will help the researchers to get their work through clinical trials within the state health service, pay for cell production facilities and support a national stem cell bank, the first of its kind in the world. The funding will be largely made to the UK Stem Cell Foundation, a non-profit organisation set up by leading academic and business figures.

The government will also encourage the setting up of a government-backed consortium of pharmaceutical, healthcare and biotech companies to coordinate use of stem cells in drug discovery.

The government’s funding comes in the wake of a report by John Pattison, former R&D; director at the department of health, who headed the U.K. Stem Cell Initiative. The organisation had gone into the future of stem cell research and concluded that the country needed at least 350 million pounds to 520 million pounds investment over the next 10 years to ensure its leading position in this highly developing field. Countries like South Korea, China and Singapore have given top priority to stem cell research in their national programmes. Even in the U.S., where federal restrictions exist on stem cell work, large amounts are spent in the research.

Stem cells can be described as master cells in human body capable of developing into any type of body cells. This capability, scientists say, act as a type of repair system for the body. However, their use is controversial because these cells are developed from very early human embryos left over from fertility treatments.

LONDON: Oil major BP Plc. is investing up to $8 billion in wind, solar, hydrogen and high efficiency gas-fired power generation projects in the next 10 years as part of its efforts to reduce the ill effects of global warming.

The London-based company, the world’s second largest listed oil firm, said it is setting up a new unit, BP Alternative Energy, to manage a number of projects that have potential to turn in sales of around $6 billion a year in about 10 years. It is earmarking an initial $1.8 billion as investment in the sector over the next three years — in solar, wind, hydrogen and combined cycle gas turbines. Most of the projects will be located in the U.S.

BP’s chief executive Lord John Browne said there are sufficient new technologies and sound commercial opportunities within the company’s reach to build a significant and sustainable business in alternative and renewable energy.

He said the planned investment, which is double its existing spending on the business, intends to set up new low-carbon power business with potential to generate around $6 billion.

The company foresees a 30 per cent rise a year in demand for solar energy-based systems.

All said and done, a vast majority of the oil major’s around $15 billion annual investment budget will continue to support oil and gas projects.

The shift in the company’s investment strategy is at variance with that of other major oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, which has said renewables are a poor use of investors’ funds.

BP has already identified sites in the U.S. to locate wind turbines with a total capacity of 2,000 megawatts. It is also finalising plans to invest $400 million at one of its CCGT plants in the U.S.

BP has its solar panel business, which is second to Japan’s Sharp and Kyocera. It has two wind farms in continental Europe and it plans to develop many more on BP property, especially in the U.S. where it has a string of plants in the mid-west’s “wind belt”.

In hydrogen, the company will build the world’s first gas power plant in Peterhead, Scotland, where carbon is separated and buried under ground. It also is also developing hydrogen as a fuel for cars and buses.

The company said gas power was included as an alternative energy plan because modern combined-cycle-gas-turbine plants are about twice as clean as conventional coal-fired power stations.

LONDON: Newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror Plc. has acquired another web-based jobs site, SecsintheCity.com, specialising in secretarial and administrative job postings. The company has paid 3.5 million pounds in cash for Paldonsay Ltd, the parent company of High Street Direct Ltd, which owns the website, set up in 2001 and solely run by founder and director Jon Grocott, 35, from his living room in Southfields.

Grocott, who had left his job with Schroders, and worked on the website, because he found a gap in the market for a site offering secretarial jobs, said the site at any given time offers 4,000 jobs, mostly in London. It has a system of placing paid advertisements, which are available for viewing by more than 200,000 visitors every month.

Grocott owns almost the entire holding in the website along with his family.

Trinity Mirror will initially pay 3.3 million pounds and there will be a deferred performance-related payment capped at 200,000 pounds.

This is Trinity Mirror’s third acquisition in the job sites sphere. It had earlier bought general recruitment web business HotGroup, owners of workthing.com, hotrecruit.com, planetrecruit.com and jobsfinancial.com, for 50.5 million pounds, and Gaapweb.com, a site for accountancy and finance-related jobs, for 13 million pounds. Besides, it has acquired a property sales website, smartnewhomes.com, for an initial11.3 million pounds and a further performance-related 5.3 million pounds.

Trinity Mirror’s chief executive Sly Bailey said SecsintheCity.com is a great brand and fits extremely well with its recruitment sites across the U.K. “Digital is a key driver of our growth strategy and recruitment is an important pillar of our advertising revenue, which makes SecsintheCity.com another perfect fit for Trinity Mirror,” he said.

LONDON: Prince William has successfully completed his three-week work experience assignment in London’s financial district, under a programme organised by banking major HSBC. The stint offered him an insight into the working of “the City”, as the financial nerve centre is better known, the Clarence House announced in a communique Saturday.

The prince acquainted himself on carrying out company analysis, constructing deal tickets and participating in client meetings at HSBC, while at the Bank of England, he had a first hand exposure on how the central bank is involved in the financial management of the country. He had also spent “busy time” at the London Stock Exchange, Lloyds of London and the Billingsgate Fish Market.

The communique quoted William, 23, as saying he had a very busy three weeks spent in the City, and he has a better understanding how all the different financial institutions work and how they fit together. “Spending every day with people who contribute so much to this country’s economy gave me the chance to experience the atmosphere of the City and to see, as best as I could, what it’s really like to work there.”

The prince has already worked on a country estate to learn about land management and had visited the charity of Centrepoint. The last part of his training will cover mountain rescue operations.

William is a graduate of Scotland’s St. Andrews University. He will be enrolled into the Sandhurst military academy for military training in 2006.

Clarence House announced that the prince came on top in a stock picking competition – a competition to choose shares that will perform well — and understood during his interaction at the Billingsgate Fish Market how the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers regulated the fish trade. At Lloyd’s of London he was shown by specialist insurer Hiscox Plc how the firm underwrites risk, ranging from sportsmen and sporting events through to how risk is assessed for various industries.

LONDON: British investment firm CVC Capital Partners Ltd. has bought a controlling stake in Formula One Group, the company that conducts the Formula One car racing. The London-based investment firm also announced that it is retaining 75-year-old Bernie Ecclestone as chief executive even as he has sold his 25 per cent stake in the company to the former.

CVC Capital Partners said it has set up a new company, Alpha Prema, which will hold the 48 per cent stake of Munich-based bank Bayerische Landesbank and the 25 per cent held by Ecclestone’s family trust, Bambino Holdings, in SLEC Holdings, which owns a number of companies that run Formula One racing. The other stakeholders in SLEC Holdings are JP Morgan Chase and Company and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and CVC Capital Partners are learnt to be in talks to buy them out too.

The monetary terms of the deal were not disclosed. The agreement is subject to approval by the European Commission and endorsement by the FIA, Formula One’s governing body.

CVC Capital Partners has laid out a well-chartered plan for Alpha Prema that will henceforth run Formula One. Its shareholders will be CVC Capital Partners, Bambino Holdings (Ecclestone seems to have bought back a stake in Alpha Prema on behalf of Bambino Holdings), Ecclestone and the Formula One management team.

Ecclestone remains chief executive of the operating company. Through Bambino Holdings, his individual stake and by virtue of him being the CEO, he has ensured three seats on Alpha Prema board. Chairman of SLEC Holdings Gerhard Gribkowsky, who is also director of Bayerische Landesbank, and CVC Capital Partners’ Donald McKenzie will be on the board.

Ecclestone, who has been with Formula One for more than 25 years, said in a statement that CVC’s long term strategies and vision will provide the stability for teams, promoters and manufacturers.

CVC Capital Partners, a majority Partner in Automobile Association of Britain, owns some 38 companies in Europe and operates 12 offices. It also manages the Madrid, Spain-based marketing company Dorna Sports SA, which stages the annual MotoGP motorcycle world championship.

The acquisition is seen as a move to foil a move to float a rival Formula One from 2008 by an organisation opposed to Ecclestone, called Grand Prix Manufacturers Association. It is set up by five major Formula One car makers, BMW AG, DaimlerChrysler AG, Renault SA, Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., all wanting to control the sports.

CVC Capital Partners said it is initiating talks with the association and the five carmakers. The association has responded to the signal saying it looked forward to constructive dialogue with CVC Capital Partners, but maintained that it is going ahead with the preparation for the new series.

Bayerische Landesbank and the two U.S. banks had inherited the stake in SLEC Holdings after Germany’s Kirch Group, which ran SLEC Holdings and had borrowed from the banks, went bankrupt. The deal will ensure that the bank got back what it had advanced to Kirch Group five years ago.

LONDON: Britain’s No 2 house builder Persimmon Plc. is buying smaller rival Westbury Plc. for 643 million pounds in what is considered as one of the biggest takeover deals in British housing industry. It is paying 560 pence for a share of Westbury, a premium of 13 per cent over the latter’s closing price on 11 November, when the buyout talks began.

The company formally announced today that it has already acquired 30 million shares constituting 26.2 per cent of the total holding.

It said the takeover will help it to build about 16,700 homes across the country in 2006, overtaking market leader Barratt Developments. The deal will also put the company in the FTSE 100 index, the first homebuilder to find a spot in the index since 1990.

Persimmon’s chief executive John White said the deal will give the company more buying power and expand its geographical coverage. Savings on administration and supplies are estimated to amount to more than 25 million pounds in 2006, rising to at least 40 million pounds the following year. The one-off costs related to the takeover have been put at around 12 million pounds. Its debts will rise to 1.2 billion pounds, including Westbury’s 270 million of borrowings, but White is confident he can reduce it by half in a year’s time.

Persimmon said it will close down eight offices, including Westbury’s head office in Cheltenham. This may lead to a “few hundred” job losses, the company said.

Two firms, Wimpey and Taylor Woodrow, were keen to buy Westbury but in view of Westbury’s board agreeing to the Persimmon offer, there is some finality now.

Westbury had reported a 26 per cent fall in its profits last month, which made it a target for takeover.

Westbury’s chief executive Nigel Fee is expected to gain 853,000 pounds by way of his shareholding in the company and around 500,000 pounds in salary compensation.

LONDON – The Ministry of Defense is under the scanner after a National Audit Office report has revealed that it’s projected budget limits have been crossed and are in the red by about £2.7 billion.

This overspend has happened even after the MoD trimmed its costs by £699 million over the last 12 months. These findings have emerged from the annual NAO report, which analyzes defense spending in the country. The report further states that the MoD had to make close to £1 billion of cuts in order to rein in the spending.

These cuts mostly affected the number and quality of the defense equipment that was to be procured. Plus the fact that existing equipment like the Jaguar and Sea Harrier fighter jets were sent into early retirement also played heavily on the cuts. The proposed outlay for the Type 45 destroyer project has also been culled by £145 million in an effort to control the costs.

The report also said that there had been some perplexing delays in the delivery of weapons systems extending to about 45 months. The National Audit Office also said that it had included the costs of the Eurofighter project into its report since it was commercially sensitive at the moment. The Eurofighter has now been dubbed as Typhoon.

“The decrease in the forecast costs is a positive sign that the MoD is starting to bring its equipment programme under control,” said NAO chief Sir John Bourn. “However, it is too early to judge whether this is the start of a sustained improvement in the MoD’s project management.”

However, the report meant that the focus is now back on the MoD since it will have to explain the overspend in Commons. Edward Leigh, the chairman of the public accounts committee in Commons looks in no mood to relent. He said that his committee had warned MoD of the need to cut back on spending.

“I sincerely hope that this year’s report is the beginning of a new direction for the MOD but there have already been too many false dawns – and congratulations or celebrations would be far too premature,” Leigh commented.

LONDON: Prime minister Tony Blair said the increased demand for influenza vaccine was unforeseen and the government has ordered 200,000 doses to be supplied immediately to overcome the deficit.

Rebutting criticism that his government had bungled in making available the required supply of flu vaccines, Blair said adequate measures have now been taken to ensure that the vaccination program went on unimpeded. He said the shortage has been as a result of rise in demand caused by concern over bird flu.

The government has asked doctors yesterday to administer the vaccinations only on those suffering from chronic disease and the elderly even as the department of health ordered for the replenishment.

The department said most of the 400,000 vaccine doses available with it in contingency reserve are now being distributed to doctors who, it said failed to order enough ahead of time. About 50,000 doses are being kept in reserve for poultry workers in case of an avian influenza outbreak.

The department had on Monday said that there were 11 million people in the groups recommended for flu jabs, with 14 million doses ordered from manufacturers — a generous margin. However, in the face of questioning by opposition, the department had to admit yesterday that 11 million covered only England, and the real total of those entitled to a free jab in the U.K. was 13.2 million. So the 14 million doses were sufficient, but not by a huge margin.

A spokesperson for the prime minister, Tom Kelly, told media that the government had ordered 14 million doses of the vaccine for this year, against 11.7 million doses used in 2004, a 20 per cent increase. These are being delivered through December, though some practices had reported shortages because of higher-than-expected demand during their annual immunization programs.

Blair told the parliament that it is difficult to plan for these things accurately.

The government came under attack from conservative party leader Michael Howard, who doubted its capability to handle a pandemic. He accused health secretary Patricia Hewitt of inefficiency and incompetence.

Hewitt had earlier blamed the GPs for the shortfall, but the department had to admit that it had muddled English and UK figures.

She later apologised to patients who could not get their injections and announced an urgent review of arrangements, including release of vaccine from the contingency stocks. The additional 200,000 doses ordered will be delivered in January.