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.”

LONDON: Music downloads are gaining remarkable popularity in Britain. There have been more than 10 million legal downloads so far this year, against a recorded 5.7 million in the whole of 2004, according to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

Industry watchers attribute the phenomenal increase to the action taken against illegal file-sharing sites late last year and the launch of several legal music sites and online stores like Apple’s iTunes and Napster.

BPI, the representative organisation in Britain, described the figure as a milestone and said tracks legally downloaded were higher in number than physical sale of singles for the first time in the last week of December 2004.

BPI’s chairman Peter Jamieson said the industry has accepted the legal download service and its rewards are now being felt. “The battle against illegal filesharing will continue, but we are delighted to have hit this milestone so soon.”

There were 659,377 digital single track downloads between April and June 2004 and 5,562,638 during the same period this year.

However, sales of CD singles continued to decline, by 23 per cent this year, from 5,721,873 between April and June 2004 to 4,408,453 during the same period this year. Artist albums sale went up by 2.2 per cent to 25,137,810 during April to June this year.

The 7-inch vinyl single recorded 87.3 per cent increase in the quarter, compared with last year, while the annual sales are expected to touch 1.4 million units, the best sales figure since 1998.

For the year ended March 2005, the best-selling 7-inch single is a limited edition reissue of Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast. Other titles that dominated the format are Libertines, Babyshambles, Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand.

Jamieson said, “Despite the incredible growth in download sales, there is still a huge demand for the collectible physical formats — it would be wrong to write them off just yet. Record companies are committed to meeting consumer demand in whatever format people want their music.”

The year 2004 also saw British music score in the U.S. Some 75 albums achieved the 100,000-sales mark, compared with 66 in 2003.

Earlier, Coldplay’s third album X&Y; entered at No 1 with first-week sales of 739,000. Its third studio album was the first British album to simultaneously top both the U.S. and U.K. charts since the Beatles 1 collection in 2000.

Said Jamieson: “We have not seen anything like it for a decade. From Coldplay to Oasis, Dido to Gorillaz, Lostprophets to Franz Ferdinand, British music is on the march.

“Music is still one of the U.K.’s great exports. We are by far the biggest exporter of music outside the U.S. We export many times more music to the U.S. than the rest of Europe put together.”

SHANGHAI: eBay’s global online payment system, PayPal, has come to China, custom-designed for the country’s Internet users. The free service, PayPal China, launched Monday, allows Chinese Internet users to make safe and secure online payments in the Chinese local currency.

The service has been integrated with 15 Chinese banks and 20 debt cards, PayPal International, the eBay subsidiary that runs the service, said.

eBay is extending the service to China through a strategic cooperation with ChinaPay E-Payment Service Co Ltd, a unit of the group that runs China’s credit card clearing system. Two of China’s Internet portals, NetEase Inc and TOM Online Inc, are also partners in the venture.

Purchases made on the portals will be covered by PayPal’s buyer protection program. Another ecommerce marketplace in the country, eBay EachNet, is expected to join the program from 1 September.

PayPal International’s vice president Mathias Entenmann said PayPal China “will improve the payment experience and increase the velocity of ecommerce in China”.

PayPal’s realtime payment solution makes use of the infrastructure of bank accounts and credit cards of individual users or businesses, who can with an email address send and receive payments online securely and quickly. With some 72 million accounts, it operates in 56 markets around the world. Apart from security, PayPal guarantees total confidentiality of customer information.

PayPal runs international services in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the U.K. The currencies acceptable under the payment system are U.S. dollars, Australian dollars, Canadian dollars, Euros, Japanese Yen and Pound.

The company is not integrating the Chinese service with its international operations due to restrictions on the convertibility of the Chinese yuan.

The Chinese online store, Alibaba.com, has its own online payment system, AliPay. The company said AliPay’s June transactions in China were equivalent of $16.9 million. It has three million registered users.

eBay is estimated to have 80 per cent share of China’s online auction market in 2004. It expects the transaction volume to grow more than 30 per cent to $400 million-plus in 2005. The company will spend $100 million on brand promotion in the country, which it feels will become the largest market in five to 10 years.

eBay had come to China in 2002 by acquiring 33 per cent stake in Shanghai-based EachNet for $30 million. It bought the balance stake in 2003 for $150 million.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has announced the successful launch of a new satellite that seeks to explore the mystery surround the black holes.

The satellite blasted off from the Uchinoura base in the Kagoshima prefecture, which is located around 620 miles southwest of capital Tokyo. The M-5 rocket took off on Sunday and carried abroad the Astro-EII satellite. JAXA telecast the event live on the web. A spokesman said that according to schedule the craft dropped back the main booster rocket to Earth three minutes after take-off. Later in the day, JAXA confirmed that the Astro-EII had successfully entered its orbit, which had been located 348 miles from the Earth.

The 21-foot-long satellite weighs 1.7 tons and carries onboard five X-ray telescopes. JAXA says that the satellite will power its panels using solar energy, which will then be used to activate these telescopes.

The agency expects to get data from the craft five times daily and said that Astro-EII’s data streaming capabilities would be tested when it sent data on the movement of black holes and the collapse of galaxies and stars. Japanese scientists hope to unlock the mystery surrounding the evolution of the universe after deciphering this data.

Japan’s space program has been in full swing after the successful launch of the H-2A rocket in February this year. The JAXA has suspended the program following an accident in November 2003. A rocket scheduled to launch two spy satellites had exploded mid-flight in that year. The Astro-EII was originally scheduled to take-off earlier in the year, but was delayed since JAXA wanted to put the H-2A into orbit first. The Astro-E-II is expected to start relaying data sometime next week.

The Littlewoods chain of 120 retail outlets will now be taken over by British group, Associated British Foods PLC (AB Foods) for £409 million stg in cash and debt in its bid to strengthen the hold of Primark, its discount clothes retail group, in Britain.

Just a few months back this year, Primark purchased six stores from the busted group, Allders, and is now on its way to transform about 25-40 large stores that would be equivalent to around 40 % of Littlewoods’ 2.1 mln square feet of retailing sale space.

Chief executive of Primark, George Weston stated during an interview that acquiring Littlewoods was indeed a strong move towards making Primark establish its presence in the high street. Calling it a “unique opportunity”, Weston said that Primark would arrive “to many towns and cities where it is currently not present.”

Meanwhile, the Littlewoods clothing chain has decided to keep its lucrative catalogue shopping business.

After taking customers from high-class Marks & Spencer Group PLC and retail entrepreneur Philip Green’s Arcadia group, Primark’s operating profit in the first-half rose by 18% and touched 59 mln stg, with its sales soaring 12%.

Primark’s parent, AB Foods further added that the discount retail chain that sold sleeveless womens’ tops for 2 pounds had showcased quite a robust performance after figures in March. In addition, the AB Foods group anticipates the operating profit derived from the new Littlewoods stores to surpass the cost of funds employed, in the full first year term once it is completed.