Staff Reporter

The Carphone Warehouse also scooped the Best Customer Service award which was presented at a gala black-tie Awards dinner/dance hosted by the UKs top comedian Jim Davidson at the Hilton on Park Lane on March 23 and attended by 1100 guests. (Full results P34 Pictures P36).

The deal is still conditional on the approval of European Telecoms shareholders at an Extraordinary Meeting on May 16.

But as ET chief executive Warren Hardy is a major shareholder (45 per cent) there is not much likelihood of the deal being rejected.

European Telecom is planning to raise 19 million through the issue of 4.8 million new shares of 420p each to pay for the acquisition and provide working capital.

Banner Telecom made sales of 63.1 million pre-tax profits of 1.8 million and as at 29 February 2000 had net assets of 4.5 million.

Banner was approached informally by European Telecom last October. By Christmas the discussions were formal.

Banner Telecom joint managing director Mike Sharpe who owns around 35 per cent of Banner stays on. But co-founder John Gardiner leaves Banner to concentrate full time on developing e-Pay the electronic top-up solutions company which has been approved by One 2 One and Vodafone.

Sharpe told Mobile News:

The time was right to sell. We had a couple of offers on the table. European Telecoms offer made the most sense with the synergy and knowing the company. No redundancies have been discussed as yet. Its likely well have even more opportunities.

Sharpe said a main advantage of the deal was that Banner could now distribute phones from all four networks. (Cont. P2)

Previously it had no direct trading relationship with BTCellnet and Vodafone.

It gives us stronger buying power. We hope to pass those benefits on to the dealer channel. Weve got some big plans for the dealer channel. With ETs backing we can move that forward.

European Telecom chief executive Warren Hardy added:

Since we floated weve made efforts to strengthen our position and develop further value-added services. Weve made a real effort to develop relationships with the PCN operators. From being nowhere we are now the second-fastest growing operator with one of the PCN operators.

We felt if we acquired Banner it would give us the number one position in the UK with PCN GSM and UMTS which will be a specialist retail sale. We now have 20 per cent of the specialist channel in the UK.

Ironically neither European Telecom or Banner had Motorola distribution. Thus the combined company is still unable to officially supply Motorola handsets with Motorolas blessing.

Hardy says :

Not having Motorola has not worried us in the past. We continue to get closer to Motorola but the ball is in their court. We havent been banging on the door. Were not affected by the fact we dont have direct supply.

As there is now a conflict of interest we are unable to let Channel Events exhibit at Mobilexpo said Mobilexpo exhibition director John Stuttard.

We need to ensure that Mobilexpo remains the UKs leading event for the mobile communications trade Stuttard added.

Channel had planned to hype its magazines and events at Mobilexpo which takes place next week at the NEC (May 9-11).

Channels chief executive Richard Hease has now been warned by Reed that anyone working for the company will be stopped from entering Mobilexpo. Hease has been told the Reed ban also applies to anybody handing out his companys magazines or promoting its events within or outside Mobilexpo.

The case is due to be heard in Southport County Court.

Diffins solicitors Brown Turner Compton Carr told Mobile News:

Our client was formerly the sales director of The Phone People plc and it is suggested in your article (April 17) by (Phone People joint MD) Jason Pickthall that (Cont. P2) our client left the company because of pressure concerning sales. Our client was constructively dismissed from his employment as a result of breaches of contract by the company.

Pickthall told Mobile News last month:

The pressure is now on for the sales staff which is why Paul Diffin and (sales director) Martin Carter have left the company.

It is understood there may well be some other changes of personnel at board level at Ora soon.

Ora managing director Ken Edmonds said McLuskies job was always on a temporary basis.

We didnt want to tell staff it was a temporary consultative position because we were going through so many changes. Johns main role was to re-organise the sales department so it could focus on Oras key routes to market. This having been achieved John was offered a position as managing director with an internet company and has chosen to take up this opportunity. He built the wholesale division set all the targets and routines. Rob Musk (exTCL) has now stepped into the chair.

Industry sources suggest Slee was eased out of Dextra after a disagreement with the Caudwell board about meeting sales targets.

It is believed that Slee has consulted lawyers regarding the manner of his departure from Dextra.

A spokesman for the Caudwell Group said:

We can confirm that Richard Slee is not currently involved in the day to day activities of Dextra Accessories Limited. We will be issuing a statement during the course of the next few days to clarify or confirm the position. Slee declined to comment.

One 2 One will work closely with Jaguar Racing to develop (Cont P2) and trial fast wireless mobile data solutions to improve the flow of critical data to or from Jaguars main office systems from anywhere Jaguar are in the world.

The device which will be used is yet to be confirmed though it will be in the form of the next generation PDA and lightweight laptop devices said Andy Haworth head of business development at One 2 Ones Mobile Multimedia division.

One 2 One marketing director Tim Yates added:

Formula One has always been at the leading edge of motor sport technology which then flows into the mass market. This partnership is about working with Jaguar in finding solutions to their communication needs with many of the learnings from the relationship being passed on to our customers.

One 2 One says its Jaguar deal had nothing to do with Oranges decision to spend 70 million on a three-year Arrows F1 sponsorship.

Joint managing director Jason Pickthall told Mobile News:

We have been talking to various networks one of which has been One 2 One. Our preferred option would be for someone to take a stake in us. But sometimes you cant always have your preferred option. There may or may not be something to the rumours that you have heard about One 2 One having an interest in the company.

Pickthall also confirmed that some area sales managers had left but denied there had been mass sackings.

Martin Carter (sales director) has resigned. One area manager also resigned. Two have swapped roles. One has become store development manager another has become stock auditor. So rumours that 10 area managers have left the company are untrue. We still have 10 area managers of the 13 we had.

Pickthall admitted The Phone People had encountered difficulties from its rapid growth but he denied the company was in crisis.

We have expanded very rapidly in the past 12 months. Weve gone from 50 stores this time last year to 125 now. Obviously in undertaking such a rapid expansion we have encompassed some difficulties. The pressure is now on for the sales staff which is why Paul Diffin and Martin Carter have left the company.

We have our problems just as other companies of our size will have problems but we are not only beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel but we are starting (Cont P2) to come through the tunnel.

We definitely expanded too quickly. We will now be consolidating. For the next three to six months you will not see much activity on the High Street. We will be concentrating on our e-commerce interests and on the call centre that we are opening.

We will also be concentrating on improving the performance of our existing stores and clearing up the problems we have in terms of non productive sales staff and non productive area managers. The area managers know that if they dont sort themselves out they will not be with the company much longer.

Over the past 12 months the company has been run in too much of a lackadaisical way. You can perhaps get away with doing things that way if you have 30 or 40 stores. When you have 125 stores you need to perform. And some people have not been performing.

Only 18 months ago the company had 25 Vodafone centres. Now we have 125 Phone People Stores a number which will continue to grow in time. The leases we are committed to will bring about this 125 figure said Pickthall.

The final few outlets are in the process of shop-fitting now. Once these have come on stream we will enter a period of consolidation. There will be few if any new stores opening for a period of time (see White Lines).

Caudwell says it was always his ambition to achieve financial security by the age of 40.

Quite frankly Ive been so bloody busy for the past 20 years that many leisure and family opportunities have passed me by he told Mobile News.

Ive a lot to catch up on. My passions are motor sport and cycling. I want to have some sort of big cycling adventure maybe riding across America. I also want to maybe try some car racing. Ive had trials in Formula Ford and I may want to pursue that. Id love to get my private pilots licence.

Foremost now is that I develop the freedom to pursue my personal interests. I am now lucky enough to be able to do just that and enjoy the fruit of the last 20 years hard slog.

John and myself have programmed a 10-month exit schedule which obviously means I wont just suddenly not be there. It is too early to say how extensive or not my ongoing involvement will be. I may retain some interests maybe consultancy.

Johns aspiration is to run and lead the business to being the largest of its kind in the world. Mine isnt. Mischief-makers may want to believe theres been a board-room bust-up but John and I are as close as weve ever been.

Said John Caudwell:

Our culture has always been to build a company capable of competing and winning in the toughest of markets against the stiffest of competition.

To succeed the management not only needs vision and operational ability but also an uncompromising commitment to be the best.

The culture and quest to attract and secure the highest calibre of management possible has enabled

Brian the option of pursuing other interests.

Orange is buying 200 million worth of infrastructure from Nokia. The equipment includes GSM base stations. mobile internet systems. and high-speed data GSM HSCSD and EDGE technologies.

The Nokia technology places us on our first step towards next generation mobile services through the provision of HSCSD and EDGE technologies said Bob Fuller COO of Orange.

This agreement means that we will be able to meet the capacity requirements both now and in the future as we see the continued growth in mobile voice and data services.

Industry sources claimed Ackroyd had walked out of the company last Monday after a management dispute. TAP marketing director Afzal Chaudhray told Mobile News:

There was a misunderstanding over Richards starting date. He is definitely here and is working from our new premises.