Whether this is an appropriate transaction for Microsoft is a different issue; certainly Mr Gates has a difficult case to argue. The US has tougher rules than Britain on this sort of thing; to announce highly market- sensitive information in such a manner might seem casual to the point of recklessness. However, given that this was Bill Gates talking about his proposed link-up with Ted Turner, who runs CNN, it also seemed appropriate. The Larry King show on CNN would in most cases seem an odd place for the chief executive of a substantial publicly quoted company to confirm one of the mega-deals presently sweeping corporate America. Apache Tomcat/5.5.25 – Error report HTTP Status 503 – Too many incoming HTTP requeststype Status reportmessage Too many incoming HTTP requestsdescription The requested service (Too many incoming HTTP requests) is not currently available.Apache Tomcat/5.5.25. Apache Tomcat/5.5.25 – Error report HTTP Status 503 – Too many incoming HTTP requeststype Status reportmessage Too many incoming HTTP requestsdescription The requested service (Too many incoming HTTP requests) is not currently available.Apache Tomcat/5.5.25. If increases to a personal pension are made, they must be enough to match anticipated previous benefits after expenses have been deducted.Clients who cannot be restored to their former occupational scheme will also be entitled to have future salary increases and their total years in service taken into account.”Where the investor is still in relevant employment and re-admission [to a company pension scheme] is not available, the expected future service must be assessed on an individual basis,” the PIA said yesterday.Advisers are expected to have completed the bulk of urgent cases by the end of this year..

But they may have to guarantee to match whatever benefits are available from the former company scheme. For those who have already retired or died, cash payments to them or their estate will be allowed.The PIA’s guidance says that the aim in each case should be “to restore the investor as closely as possible to the position he would have been if there had been no failure of compliance, taking into account any known changes of circumstances since the original advice was given”.Other factors to be taken into account include a company’s charges. A successful July and August would give it some ammunition in its discussions with the banks.. NIC CICUTTI

The Personal Investment Authority yesterday issued new guidelines detailing how hundreds of thousands of pension transfer victims should be compensated.
The regulator’s rules explain how individuals may work out the amount needed in compensation to turn the clock back to the positition that existed before they were advised to leave their company schemes.If reinstatement proves too expensive, insurers and financial advisers will be allowed to keep someone in a private scheme. A spokeswoman for the company said yesterday: “We are in talks with banks – we are always in contact with the banks – and we will report in October.”The summer season is vital to Eurotunnel, which is taking market share from the ferry companies in spite of problems with breakdowns and strikes. The view is that the poor figures will inevitably mean a restructuring of the company’s debt.Eurotunnel’s interest bill is pounds 2m a day, compared with daily revenues of pounds 600,000.

Sales in the six months of only pounds 104.5m shocked City analysts, who had been looking for pounds 500m in the year. In Paris they rose to Fr11.70 from Monday’s close of Fr11.05.The jitters began earlier this month when Eurotunnel announced revenues well below expectations for the first half of the year. The company will shortly meet its 225 banks to discuss whether they might advance fresh funds to keep it afloat.In London, shares in Eurotunnel plunged 28p to 138p on Monday but recovered yesterday to 147p. It quickly withdrew the story pending a comment from Eurotunnel and subsequently said it had been the victim of a hoax.Mr Ponsolle said Eurotunnel’s head office “has no further comment” at this stage.The debacle comes at a sensitive time for Eurotunnel, which is dogged by rumours of a renewed financial crisis and speculation that it might embark on another round of fund-raising. Mr Ponsolle said it was intolerable that such a story could be distributed without verification.”I am asking for an inquiry because I mean to protect the interests of shareholders, who cannot be victims of such malevolent acts,” he said.AFP said the report was based on a phone call from a man claiming to work with Eurotunnel’s public relations department. The row followed reports, later retracted, by the state-owned news agency, Agence France-Presse, that Eurotunnel had reached agreement with its creditor bankers to reschedule debts.Patrick Ponsolle, Eurotunnel’s co-chairman, called for the inquiry as he refuted the AFP reports. MARY FAGAN

Industrial Correspondent
The Paris bourse is investigating the share price movements of Eurotunnel, the troubled Channel tunnel operator, because of “rumours” surrounding the company over the past few days.

“We had been expecting the absolute rise in July M3 to be lower than in June, when it was extremely strong, but nothing like this,” she said.The discount rate is currently 4 per cent, and the lowest repo rate 4.45 per cent.. This seems to indicate a further reduction in the pace of economic growth at the beginning of the second half of the year, which in turn suggests that growth is non-inflationary.Irgeen Rust, economist at West LB, agreed that the unexpected drop increases the likelihood of a Bundesbank rate cut. Analysts had forecast a rise of 0.7-1.2 per cent in annualised July M3 growth.”The totally unexpected turnaround in M3 can be seen as encouraging the Bundesbank to lower key rates, perhaps as soon as this Thursday,” Peter Mueller, economist at Commerzbank, said.Several analysts urged caution, however, saying that the overall M3 situation had not changed, and the Bundesbank was likely to await further data before lowering key rates.The weak figures were caused by strong monetary capital formation, a counterpart of M3, and by slowing bank lending to the private sector. The M3 statistics – the key indicator for the Bundesbank’s monetary policy – add to an array of data suggesting economic growth is slowing.July M3 contracted by an annualised 0.4 per cent, compared with a rise of 0.4 per cent in June. BSkyB announced record profits of its own last week.Analysts expect Mr Murdoch to continue to invest in media and entertainment assets over the next year, with the emphasis on building capability in digital TV and multimedia..