Mr Ross in turn has been appointed deputy chairman in addition to his existing post. One view in the industry is that Mr Ross is positioning himself to take the reins from Lord Young.Mr Lewis is the fourth head of Mercury to leave over the last six years and some City analysts have criticised Lord Young for failing to get a stable management in place at the subsidiary.Mr Lewis, brought in last November to transform Mercury's fortunes, is believed to have been offered a seat on the C&W board but to have had misgivings about the level of freedom he would be given in future to take Mercury to the next phase of its development.Cable & Wireless will say only that Mr Lewis left for "personal reasons". Because he was not on the main board of C&W, the group said that the terms of his employment and any severance agreement were confidential. Mr Olsen will become chairman of the "operational management team". There was speculation in the City that Mr Lewis's departure was a side- effect of a power struggle within the group which could ultimately lead to the downfall of C&W chairman, Lord Young. C&W said yesterday that Rod Olsen, finance director, was to acquire a much more powerful role, taking on significant day-to-day responsibility from James Ross, chief executive.
Cable & Wireless was plunged into further controversy yesterday as new changes emerged at senior management level only a day after the sudden resignation of Duncan Lewis, the chief executive of its Mercury Communications arm. No-one would find out," Mr Anderson replied.Mr Anderson said that when he had last seen the SFO in 1994 he had received only pounds 560 but that he had subsequently received further payments."I was paid over a period of delivering tapes and when I met Clive Wolman," he told the court.The SFO has made two charges against Mr Ward, alleging that he made misleading statements and arranged for the falsification of documents during interviews which he had with the SFO in connection with a fraud trial.Harvey Rands, Mr Ward's solicitor at the law firm Memery Crystal, said that he was "exceedingly surprised that the SFO permitted this case to go on for a day and a half when they knew that information they had given to us was incorrect."The SFO declined to make a formal comment.Yesterday at Southwark the jury was left out of the court-room for most of the day as both sets of lawyers contested legal points.Judge Rivlin called the jury in just before breaking for lunch to say: "A substantial legal matter has arisen at this stage and we are having to deal with it.". Brook Anderson, the SFO's main witness in a case it is bringing this week against Michael Ward, the former chairman of European Leisure, told a jury at Southwark Crown Court that the pounds 4,000 was paid in several instalments following the delivery of tape recordings he had secretly made of conversations between him and Mr Ward. Mr Anderson, who used to be Mr Ward's builder, said he had only told the SFO last week about the pounds 4,000 payment. Before that both the SFO and the defence had believed that Mr Anderson had only been paid expenses of around pounds 560.Asked by the defence who had suggested to him that he should say that he had only received payments of pounds 500 or thereabouts, Mr Anderson replied: "Clive Wolman.""So he was suggesting that if asked about the amount of money you had received from his newspaper, you were to tell a lie to whoever it was who asked you?" the defence asked."He said it didn't really matter. A principal witness for the Serious Fraud Office has told a jury that he received pounds 4,000 from Clive Wolman, the former City editor of the Mail on Sunday, for co-operating with a story that the newspaper was working on.
It's just our turn this week for the rumour-mongers."Sources close to Woolwich said that, although compli- cated, a new scheme of conversion and then merger would appeal, since everything would happen at the same time.Societies to watchSociety Price (pounds m) on same basis as N&PNationwide 3527Woolwich 2670Alliance & Leicester 2219Bradford & Bingley 1352Britannia 929Northern Rock 802Yorkshire 675Bristol & West 598. It will take until the end of the year or even next year [to finalise the decision] We are open-minded on our status. This is sheer speculation."A spokesman said that the board was actively considering four possible strategies: stay the same, merge and possibly convert with another society, sell up to a third party such as a bank, or convert on its own."The board have made no decisions yet. The society officially denied the suggestions yesterday, saying "We are not planning a flotation.
The City's rule of thumb is that any society would have to have minimum total assets of around pounds 35bn to survive independently as a bank The Woolwich's total assets are pounds 26bn. This is the logic that drove Halifax to merge with Leeds this year as a prelude to conversion in about 18 months.Possible partners for Woolwich include Britannia, Northern Rock and Yorkshire. All three denied any such plans.Some employees at Woolwich are already worried that the new chief executive, Peter Robinson, who replaces Donald Kirkham this year, will sell or close down a series of subsidiaries next year, as a preliminary to conversion.Woolwich's estate agency chain, its independent financial services arm, the building division Woolwich Homes and the European off-shore operations are all under threat, according to employees.Woolwich has already slimmed its estate agency chain from 250 offices to 120. But sources close to the society confirmed that plans were afoot to convert in two years, valuing the society at pounds 3bn. Its 3 million voting members could receive an average of up to pounds 1,000 each in shares. Woolwich has not found a partner yet, but a northern-based society would make most sense, analysts said yesterday. Woolwich spokesmen were at pains yesterday to stress that no final decisions had been made on the society's new strategy. JWoolwich Building Society, Britain's third-largest society, is considering conversion to a bank, with the option of then merging with another newly-converted society.
The reality is that pension costs each year are likely to be over a third of the disclosed remuneration.For a pounds 300,000-a-year executive director of an FT-SE company who has been promised a pension of two-thirds final salary on retirement at 60, the capital cost is around pounds 3.5m, says Lane Clark & Peacock.. He said there was a danger that the proposals might add confusion, "particularly where bonuses are pensionable and the resultant figures will sway around from year to year in a meaningless way".Lane Clark & Peacock's findings follow the firm's publication of a survey last month, which found that 17 of the FT-SE 100 companies made negligible or no disclosure of directors' pension costs.The other 83 annual reports showed pension costs averaging 11 per cent of remuneration, which the actuaries said falls "far short of the cost of providing even current service benefits, let alone the extra past service costs arising from large salary increases". Such contributions can vary hugely, depending on the circumstances of the fund and the company. The true picture emerges from an examination of pension entitlements earned during the year, which is what the Greenbury Committee wishes to see disclosed.However, the new disclosures would have no effect on the calculation of the overall cost to the company of providing pensions, which would still be calculated under SSAP24.If accepted, the proposals could be implemented for companies reporting results at the end of this year.Bob Scott, partner at Lane Clark & Peacock, said the approach would give investors a far better understanding of the issue, while reducing the scope for creative accounting in the way the costs are presented.However, Gerry Acher, head of audit and accounting at accountants KPMG, warned that more work might need to be done before the guidance was made a listing requirement. Artificially boosting directors' pensions means that retiring directors receive more than they have earned the right to during their active careers."Labour is in favour of good reward for good performance, but abuses should not be tolerated."The figures revealed by the proposed disclosures are much higher than those stated hitherto because they aim to show the value to the individual of the benefits promised rather than the contribution actually paid or accounted for under Accounting Standard SSAP24, as happens now.