I don’t know how you can say that is a good deal.”News of Shearer’s decision had little impact on Manchester United, which claimed its pounds 12m bid for Shearer was blocked by the Blackburn board. Shares in the Old Trafford club, who remain warm favourites to retain their Premier League title, added 3p to 431p.Elsewhere in the leisure world, the stock market toasted confirmation that brewer Bass was in talks with food and drinks group Allied Domecq about buying a 50 per cent stake in Carlsberg-Tetley, the Anglo-Danish brewing business. Some analysts reckoned the signing would be make it easier for the club to raise money from institutional investors to fund the cost of building a larger stadium across the Tyne. The far riskier investment in Shearer, the argument goes, is best left to majority shareholder and Newcastle chairman Sir John Hall.Others were less sure. “Newcastle are paying pounds 3m a year plus a salary for a player who will be worthless in five years,” said analyst Paul Wedge at Collins Stewart “It will mean Newcastle reporting a massive loss this year. With little else to distract them, traders’ attention predictably turned to football and Newcastle United’s audacious pounds 15m swoop for Blackburn Rovers and England striker Alan Shearer.
The deal, a world record transfer fee, could have important implications for Newcastle’s plans to seek a stock market listing, possibly by the end of this year, which could value the club at pounds 160m.The City seemed split about the impact of Shearer’s move on the flotation.

Investors were largely sidelined ahead of tomorrow’s monthly meeting between the Chancellor, Ken Clarke, and Governor of the Bank of England Eddie George, and the index of leading 100 shares traded in a narrow 10- point range, closing 5.5 points higher at 3978.8 in thin trade. The shares are hovering just below $17, down about 25 per cent from the $22.15 they were trading at when the pact was announced.Further damaging prospects are quarterly earnings announced by the Media Group last Friday. It reported its first loss of $11m, or three cents a share, compared with a profit of $25m in the same quarter a year ago.Publicly, US West says it remains committed to the transaction, however. “We like this deal, we get along famously as partners”a company spokesman said.There has been intense interest in US West’s push towards global expansion and use of the liberalisation bill by entering cable distribution rather than by seeking new partners in the telephone business..

It represented the first major realignment after the passage by the US Congress of a bill liberalising telecommunications and allowing telephone companies for the first time to enter the cable business.
Doubts that the two companies will be able to consumate the merger in time for the planned deadline for closing later this year have surfaced because of a recent dive in the value of US West’s Media Group stock. US West gripped the industry last February with plans to purchase Cablevision in a cash and stock deal worth $5.3bn (pounds 3.4bn). What had promised to be the biggest deal ever, involving Baby Bell telephone company US West, and television cable operator, Continental Cablevision, may falter because of shifting share values. We do not set out to deliberately mislead.” The allegations come at sensitive time for BT, which this week must decide whether to accept Oftel’s proposals for new competition powers in return for a relaxation of price controls.. These are serious matters, and resources will be made available to come to a conclusion as soon as possible.”BT rejected the report. “We deal with 3 million such inquiries every working day, and the Consumers Association is talking about just 23. More than 10,000 people are engaged in doing just this work.”The spokesman added that “if mistakes were made they were genuine.

BT is guilty of giving false or misleading information to cable telephone customers in its effort to win back business, according to a report in Which? magazine published today. The consumer rights magazine says BT may be in breach of its licence by telling customers, erroneously, that cable operators charge for engaged calls and directory listings and that calls made through BT are as cheap as those through cable companies.
The report was based on 23 inquiries by researchers at Which? The conclusions are part of a complaint now with Oftel, the telcoms regulator.”Our disturbing findings reveal that BT could be flouting its licence and perhaps breaking competition laws too,” Andrew McIllwraith, senior editor of Which?, said.Oftel said yesterday: “We will investigate it. Following a report from accountants Coopers & Lybrand, it sued KPMG for several hundred million pounds and settled out of court in August 1991 for pounds 40m.Mr Guerin was later jailed after he and others pleaded guilty to various charges of fraud.. His three-year investigation had concluded that they were among those “comprehensively deceived by a fraud which was designed and executed with extraordinary care and skill”.Two fictitious contracts – one for the United Arab Emirates and the other for Pakistan – had been created to deceive the accountants into accepting a certain level of profit, he added.If Mr Chance had found that there was a case to answer the KPMG partners – Alan Comber and Robert Ferguson – would have to go before a tribunal and could have faced barring from the Institute of Chartered Accountants and unlimited fines.The inquiry, which was referred to Mr Chance by the Institute in June 1993, stems from the takeover in November 1987 of International Signal and Control, a US-based defence contractor quoted on the London Stock Exchange and headed by James Guerin, by UK electronics group Ferranti. KPMG – through its forerunner firm Peat Marwick Mitchell – was auditor to ISC and became joint auditor to the new company, Ferranti International Signal, after the takeover.The company became aware of serious concerns about the contracts at the centre of the investigation in August 1989 – a month after Peat Marwick and fellow auditor Grant Thornton signed off the accounts for the year to March 1989. Auditors at accountancy firm KPMG who gave Ferranti International Signal a clean bill of health weeks before the discovery of frauds totalling pounds 215m that led it to the brink of collapse have been cleared of any wrongdoing by the accountancy profession’s top disciplinary body. Michael Chance, executive counsel of the Joint Disciplinary Scheme, said in his report published today that there was no case for the firm or any of its personnel to answer.
There was no scope for the suggestion that the auditors had been “faced with clear evidence of dishonesty and failed to pursue it”, he said.

Is Ian Lang about to surprise us all once again? Three months ago the Bass-Carlsberg Tetley deal stood about as much chance of getting the nod as Hooper’s Hooch replacing school milk. Now, however, the President of the Board of Trade looks ready to allow a merger which would give Bass a near-40 per cent share of the UK brewing market in return for a comparatively modest set of divestment undertakings. Consider what Mr Lang had to say about the desirability of such concentration of power as recently as May. The occasion was a utilities conference and his speech was mainly directed at the electricity and water industries but his comments could have applied equally to any sector His words are worth repeating in full. “Some people argue that competition should not be my top priority, but that I should use my powers to encourage the creation of large utility companies which have the scale to compete in world markets I believe that this argument misses the point.