PARIS: Starwood Capital Group LLC of the United States has reached an agreement with the French hotel and champagne group Taittinger to buy out its business in a deal worth about €1.2billion (£834m).

The US property and hotel investment group will now own the 14 luxury hotels that were the pride of the Taittinger group. These hotels include the Crillon and the Lutetia in Paris as well as the Martinez in Cannes. Starwood also gains control over the Campanile and Première Classe economy chains. The group said that its main interest was in the Société du Louvre, the second-largest hotel network in Europe rather than the champagne business of Taittinger. Hence, Starwood would sell that arm of business as soon as it found appropriate buyers. To this effect, Barry Sternlicht, Starwood’s chairman and chief executive sought help to find buyers for the champagne business, “We welcome the Taittinger family’s advice and counsel as we work to ensure that the company’s prized champagne business finds an appropriate home,” he commented.

However, as a part of the deal, the Taittinger family could try to buy back the champagne business if it felt inclined to do so. However, there would be a race with drinks group Pernod Ricard, which has evinced an interest in the champagne business.

Starwood has brought 65 per cent of Groupe Taittinger under which it also gets a 44 percent stake in the hotel business. The group said that it would also launch a bid to buy out the remaining shares from firms, which are listed in Paris.

The Société du Louvre has also got a majority stake in Baccarat crystal, the luxury goods brand. Commenting on the future plans for the hotel chain, Mr. Sternlicht said, “We look forward to building on the company’s proud heritage by growing its economy hotel business in France and into new markets, particularly Eastern Europe.” It is rumored that he is planning to invest €100 million in order to upgrade the 14 luxury hotels.

LONDON: Renowned Franco-Polish director and film maker Roman Polanski won the libel he filed against Vanity Fair over an article alleging he had attempted to seduce a Scandinavian “beauty” in New York as he was leaving for the funeral of his eight-month pregnant wife Sharon Tate, who was murdered in August 1969.

A jury in London’s high court on Friday awarded him 50,000 pounds in damages.

The trial, extending over a week, saw sensational revelations of the 71-year-old director’s sexual escapades during the Sixties and a courtroom drama when at one point, giving evidence over a video link, the director wept. There was a history element too, a sort of a precedent in legal formalities, when he became the first to sue through the video link from another country, France, where he is residing now. The trial was permitted after the House of Lords ruled that he should not be denied access to justice despite his self-imposed exile since 1978. Polanski also got costs estimated at 1.5 million pounds.

The director may have faced extradition if he had appeared in a London court as he is wanted by the U.S. legal enforcers in connection with a sex crime admitted by him involving a 13-year-old girl in 1977. He had fled the U.S. in 1978 and cannot be extradited from France.

Immediately after the verdict, Polanski said in a statement from his Paris home: “It goes without saying that, whilst the whole episode is a sad one, I am obviously pleased with the jury’s verdict today.

“Three years of my life have been interrupted. Three years within which I have had no choice but to relive the horrible events of August 1969, the murder of my wife, my unborn child and my friends.

“The memory of my late wife Sharon Tate was at the forefront of my mind in bringing this action.” Tate was stabbed by the Charles Manson “family”.

Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair’s editor, expressed surprise over the jury decision. He said it is “outrageous that this story is considered defamatory given the fact that Mr. Polanski cannot be here because he slept with a 13-year-old girl a quarter of a century ago.

“Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see how the wheels of British justice move. I wish Mr. Polanski well.”

Polanski had admitted having sex with a woman four weeks after Tate’s murder and seeking solace in sex with teenaged girls from a finishing school in Gstaad, Switzerland later.

Polanski’s private life was the focus of attention for much of the trial, with Vanity Fair attempting to persuade the jury that he was perfectly capable of “callous indifference” to Tate’s memory and had no reputation to hurt in the first place.

His lawyer John Kelsey-Fry argued that Polanski was clearly distraught at the time of his wife’s murder.

Vanity Fair had accused Polanski of propositioning a woman on the way to the funeral, but conceded it did not happen on the way to the funeral but two weeks later. It alleged he had told the woman “I’ll make you the next Sharon Tate”.

Actress Mia Farrow, deposing for the director, said the incident never happened.

Winning the Oscar for his movie The Pianist in 2003, Polanski had listed a string of sexual conquests that began within a month of the death of Tate, 26. But he said it is an “abominable lie” on the part of the magazine to claim that, at a dinner at Elaine’s Restaurant in New York while he was en route to Tate’s funeral in Los Angeles, he had used her memory as a “tool of seduction”.

Polanski has now been married for 17 years to his third wife, French actress Emmanuelle Seigner.

It’s 11:00 and there’s no news of Steve and you are worried about him. Sounds familiar? Welcome to the world of parents who go through hell worrying about where their kids are. Do not despair for help is on its way. Hoping to cash in on the digital wave, mTrack Services have devised a system called KidsOK. By using this novel service, parents can keep track of their kids 24 hours a day.

The company claims that they can trace the location of any mobile phone within a minute. Anxious parents should send a text message to 60777 and add their kids’ name at the end of the message, for example, ‘ping Steve.’ Within minutes parents will be able to receive a text message as well as a mini-map of the location where the mobile phone is currently located. The location can be pinpointed to within 500 meters in urban areas and up to five kilometers in rural areas.

KidsOK CEO and co-founder Richard Jelbert feels that this particular service would be a boon to parents who can trace their child’s’ location without disturbing him/her, “If the child doesn’t pick up your call this gives you enough information to know if they are at a friend’s house, in the school area or perhaps near home,” Jelbert said. This service has received the thumbs-up from children’s charity Kidscape.

To avail the service, which can work only through the parent and child’s mobile phones, it is mandatory that both the parent as well as the child agree to the tracking. All numbers will be encrypted within KidsOK server to ensure maximum privacy to the users. The next step is to verify that the mobile phones belong to the registered users and after this is accomplished, parents can keep track of their child’s location all through the day without him/her being aware of it. “The KidsOK service is based on encouraging trust and co-operation between parent and child, striking a balance between giving kids their freedom and knowing where they are,” Jelbert concluded.

The KidsOK mobile location pack is priced at £39.95 and is available across the UK from this week onwards. The pack will also be sold at select outlets such as Bhs, Boots and Millets stores. Mobile operators such as Orange, Vodafone, T-mobile and O2 have already enabled the service on their phones.

LONDON: BT group is upgrading all its Broadband Basic subscribers to 2 Mb from Thursday. The upgrade, which will stay as the standard speed for all the company’s packages, will be free for the current as well as prospective subscribers, the company said.

The company has decided to retain the price of the service at 17.99 pounds a month.

Making an announcement Wednesday, BT group managing director Gavin Patterson said, “Today’s announcement creates a standard of a minimum broadband speed of 2Mb for all our retail broadband services – these higher speeds open up a wealth of new possibilities for the use of broadband.”

The company said it believes that the “battleground in broadband will be in differentiating services rather than price and speed as it is today”. While the speed has been doubled, the company has kept its monthly usage limit at 1 Gb.

BT group added its five millionth broadband customer this year. It claims its service is available to 99.5 percent of homes. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics in Britain said by May 2005 broadband constituted 51 per cent of all connections to the Internet in Britain against just 1 per cent in January 2001, clearly indicating that broadband is the preferred medium. In contrast, the number of dial-up connections is declining.

While broadband is 10 to 80 times faster than the dial-up, it provides for permanent connection to the Web, which can also be used to receive telephone calls.

The price of the service too has fallen in recently to even less than 10 pounds a month for a 512 Kb connection. Several operators are offering higher download speeds at no extra cost. There are firms which even offer bandwidths of up to 8 Mb.

LONDON: RHM Group, maker of Hovis bread and Mr Kipling cakes, got its re-listed on the London Stock Exchange Tuesday after a 13-year gap. At initial trading, the shares recorded a 6 percent jump above the listed price of 275 pence.

The company said the offer of 49.6 million existing shares and 172.7 million new shares was six times oversubscribed and analysts said the initial price spurt took the company’s market value to over one billion pounds. The offer represented 63.8 percent of the company’s issued capital.

The company, originally Rank Hovis McDougall, said the shares have been placed with a broad base of institutional shareholders. Chief executive Ian McMahon said, “We are delighted that RHM’s IPO has attracted such strong support among leading U.K. and international institutional investors.”

Besides Hovis and Mr Kipling, RHM has other brands like Bisto gravy, Paxo stuffing and Sharwood’s Asian sauces.

The sole bookrunner and global coordinator for the IPO, Credit Suisse First Boston, can exercise an option to place a further 22.2 million shares within 30 days. The balance shares will be held by the company’s current owner, private equity group Doughty Hanson, and its management.

Doughty Hanson had bought the company in 2000 from Tomkins PLC for 1.1 billion pounds, including debt.

RHM intends to make use of the funds generated to contribute to the company’s pension scheme (125 million pounds), repay securitised debts and purchase loan notes issued to the owners (472 million pounds).

McMahon said the company has a clear strategy to continue its transformation into the leading U.K.-focused food company, and “we are determined to create value for our shareholders by executing this strategy successfully”.

For the year ended April 30, the company had reported net income of 175.8 million pounds on sales of 1.53 billion pounds. This is compared with a loss of 56.3 million pounds in the prior period. It has 16,000 people on its rolls in the U.K. In addition to the branded items, the company also produces material for leading grocers like Tesco, WalMart’s Asda and J Sainsbury, which are then sold under the respective supermarket’s own brand names.

FSA research says 2 million households face endowment mortgage shortfall
A new research commissioned by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) reveals that a majority of Britons who still have an endowment mortgage are straddled with an estimated shortfall of £7,200 each.

The research claims that there are almost two million people who are facing such a shortfall. The research titled “Mortgage Endowments – shortfalls and consumers action,” says that this figure equates to about 11 percent of all households in Britain. Out of these 11 percent households, almost 42 percent face a deficit amounting to over £5000, while the remaining face a shortfall in the region of £7,200. Overall, this was equal to a staggering £16 billion deficit.

Of these affected, 79 percent of the people said that they were “concerned” and 31 percent admitted that they were “seriously concerned” at the impact this shortfall would have on their retirement and pension plans.

The study also found that 69 percent of the people facing this shortage had taken some step to get out of the potential problems. They had ended up taking advice and also changing part of their mortgage to a repayment basis. Most of them admitted to making extra savings and capital repayments as well.

The FSA’s director of retail issues, Ms. Anna Bradley said that in the backdrop of this report she expected a surge in complaints from people, “We expect firms to act now to make sure they have adequate contingency plans in place for any increase in the volume of complaints,” she commented. However, the Association of British Insurers (ABI), was of the opinion that there had been considerable fall in the amount owed, “The efforts of the industry and others appear to be paying off. Many more people have taken action to address the possibility of a shortfall,” Chris Kenny of the association commented.

Consumer group Which? spokeswoman, Louise Hanson said, “Too many people who believe they have cause for complaint put off sorting out their endowment problems until it’s too late.” And consequently, they had to suffer from unwanted deficits.

Car Maker, MG Rover is gearing up for a possible revival as potential bidders are lining up for Rover’s asset acquisition. Among the suitors is the Chinese manufacturer, Shanghai Automotive (SAIC) who has teamed up with ex-boss of Ford Europe, Martin Leach.

The SAIC and Leach duo have decided to launch a joint bid for all portions of the firm which is expected to help the embattled Rover spring back to life once again at its Longbridge division. Another suitor for the deal is SAIC’s opponent firm, Nanjing Automobile, which is against the idea of restarting Longbridge production.

MG Rover reported its insolvency in April with debts of about £1.4 billion and a loss of over 5,000 jobs that excruciatingly ashamed the government just days before the elections.

SAIC had purchased intellectual property rights of chief Rover models, Rover 25 and 75 last year for £67m and has been keen to restore the company’s existence since the past couple of months. Shanghai intends to take full control of Rover’s sister concern, Powertrain that manufactures Rover engines in its joint bid, whereas Leach, using the name Magma in the bid, plans to create an independent firm at Longbridge.

SAIC has thought of relocating the engine production to China that will reduce the manufacturing cost considerably. Engines will later be sent back to the UK for their installation in Rover cars. Leach, meanwhile, expects to establish an all new research and technology centre at Longbridge that will look into the development of fresh models, in turn generating a set of 1,000 and above jobs for architects and engineers. The SAIC/Leach bid has received support from the Transport & General Workers Union.

The third bidder for MG Rover is supposedly a Birmingham executive group headed by the corporate troubleshooter, David James. David James is a recognized name associated with the resuscitation of the Millennium Dome. Allegedly, SAIC merged with Leach for a bid following the breakdown of negotiations with David James. James is known to have applied to the government to guarantee a £80 million loan for an opposing bid.

It is also being said SAIC will move the court in case Nanjing or David James win the Rover bid, using its Rover intellectual property rights card.

Six workers at a whisky plant got really high, but mind you, it was not the whisky that sent them in a tizzy! Six female Glasgow distillery workers shone with immense ecstasy and excitement on getting their hands on a £15m National Lottery on Tuesday.

Female colleagues at the Morrison Bowmore whisky plant couldn’t believe their luck when they discovered on Tuesday that their lottery ticket contained the six winning numbers of Saturday’s lucky draw, which had won them a whopping £15m, i.e. £2.5m each.

The winning ticket had the lucky numbers, 22, 37, 7, 20, 23, 34 while the bonus ball number was 38 that featured on group supervisor Isabell Devlin’s ticket. Isabell aged 38 will distribute the treasure with her colleagues, i.e. Angela Griffiths, 46, Mary Milroy, 56, Irene Cameron, 42, Elizabeth Eaglesham, 56 and Anne Ferguson, 58, from Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire.

All these women are married and well settled with four of them having children for whom this lottery win means more than a ‘dream come true.’ Describing the lotto win, an elated Ms Devlin was quoted as saying, “The syndicate plays the Lotto every Saturday and Wednesday. It was my turn to put the numbers on and I don’t usually check the previous draw until I go to buy the tickets for the next one, but something made me check the numbers on Tuesday morning instead.” She added that once she had discovered the amazing win, she was “so jittery and shaky” that she couldn’t comfortably eat her “toast and beans.” She got the girls together to tell them the news and what happened after that is quite understandable.

This is Scotland’s second biggest lottery win after a £20m win in 2000, which was bagged by six butchers from Lesmahagow, South Lanarkshire. Interestingly, it is also the second time that a group from a Scottish bottling plant has brought home such a fortune, the first time being a £2.4m win by seven workers at Chivas Brothers, near Edinburgh in May 2004.
Isabell had bought the lucky ticket from a Co-op store in Wallacewell Road in her home city.

The Welsh Assembly Government has specified seven areas throughout Wales where additional wind farms will be set up in an attempt to augment clean energy production by at least 10 % from renewable sources in the subsequent five years. The Welsh Assembly Government has specified seven areas throughout Wales where additional wind farms will be set up in an attempt to augment clean energy production by at least 10 % from renewable sources in the subsequent five years.

The government announced its plans after a consultation process but failed to receive a positive response, especially by the natives of Wales, who believe that wind farms did not produce enough electricity that could substantiate its need and establishment, besides damaging landscapes. In fact, Caroline Evans, co-ordinator of the Brechfa Forest Energy Action Group called the decision a “death- knell for the Welsh uplands.” She intended to touch a personal chord with the populace while saying, “We want to get tourists and in Brechfa Forest money has just been invested in mountain biking tracks to do that. But that’s no good if you look up and see something bigger than the Statue of Liberty.”

Moreover, in a Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales, a statement disagreeing to the wind farm project said, “We are particularly disappointed that this ill conceived policy framework does not give reasonable credence or legitimacy to the realistic contribution that energy conservation measures and the range of other renewable technologies offer.”

Nevertheless, environment minister, Carwyn Jones looked unfazed about the issue and expressed confidence in the new strategy. He believed that it was apt for Wales and it would “enable us to meet our commitment to deliver four terawatt hours of electricity generated from renewable sources by 2010.” He added that a variety of other renewable energy sources and technologies had been evaluated after which coming to the conclusion that “onshore wind is the only viable option to provide the lion’s share of the 2010 Assembly renewable target.”

Meanwhile, environmental group appreciated the move, along with Friends of the Earth Cymru. The allotted sites for wind farms included Carno North in Powys and Coed Morgannwg, which would have the maximum number of turbines of more than a 100 each. Other five sites outlined for development were Nant-y-Moch in Ceredigion, Clocaenog Forest in Gwynedd, Pontardawe in the Swansea Valley, Brechfa Forest in Carmarthenshire and Newtown South in Powys. All these sites would have about 25-50 turbines each.

Presently, about 30 megawatts (MW) of electricity from renewable sources is achieved in Wales and there is need for more 1,000MW to achieve the energy target. According to the plan, about 200MW of the required amount would be derived from offshore wind farms while the remaining 800MW will be got from on-shore wind farms. The total cost involved would amount to £700m.

Then again, Joel Rawson at the Centre for Alternative Technology was seen pushing the efficiency of other renewable energy generating sources, like solar and hydro electricity and reiterated that exploration of alternative sources ought to be done in greater detail.

He said, “We would certainly like to see much more commitment made to the development of these sort of technologies, (solar and hydro) because support needs to be given at this stage, in order for them to be ready in 10 years or so, to sit alongside wind power and make a coherent energy strategy.”