Laura Ashley insisted it would not abandon its attempt to take

Laura Ashley insisted it would not abandon its attempt to take its clothing range upmarket despite admitting sales are still plummeting.
The company, which is keen to shake off its “frumpy, floral frocks” image, revealed yesterday that underlying sales at its fashion division plunged 28.2 per cent during the 24 weeks to 15 January.It recently parted company with its fashion designer, Alistair Blair, but said the decision to let him go did not signal a change of fashion direction.David Cook, the finance director, said: “Our fashion strategy is to continue to move more upmarket We have moved the range on. Sir Peter said the company had received a strong level of support from investors.. In the last four years Amec has spent a net £150m on acquisitions as the group has reshaped itself around three core businesses.The share placing was carried out by UBS and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein at a 4 per cent discount to Amec’s opening share price yesterday of 313.5p. It made pre-tax profits of $4.3m (£2.3m) on sales of $58m in 2003.Oil and gas now accounts for one-third of Amec’s £5bn-a-year turnover as it has progressively moved out of traditional construction activities and housebuilding. Amec has also won the £1bn- plus Incheon Bridge project in Korea which will involve an equity investment on its part of £19m.A further £23m has been earmarked for urban regeneration schemes in the UK, while £15m will be spent on a series of small European transactions.Sir Peter Mason, Amec’s chief executive, said that the Paragon deal in Houston would provide it with a major presence in what was the decision-making centre for many of the world’s big oil and gas companies.Paragon has 500 employees and carries out most of its work from its Houston base. These include a £200m contract to extend the Docklands Light Railway through to Woolwich Arsenal in south-east London and a hospital contract in Colchester.

Amec shares closed 7.5p lower at 306p.The money will be used partly to finance the £20m acquisition of the Houston-based oil and gas engineering services company, Paragon Engineering Services.Amec is also committing a further £40m in equity to a series of PPP projects it recently won. Amec, the international engineering and project management group, sprang a surprise £90m share issue yesterday to fund an expansion of its oil and gas division and increase its activities under the Public Private Partnership.
The placing of 30.1 million new shares at 300p, representing a 9.99 per cent capital increase, was twice subscribed. During 2005 to 2006, we aim to reduce our costs by a further 5 per cent.”They also spelt out their determination to implement the findings of wide-ranging strategic reviews into the television and telecoms sectors.. Ofcom’s budget for 2004-05 was, on a like-for-like basis, 5 per cent less than the combined budgets of our predecessors and during the year we reduced our costs by 5 per cent.

In the current financial year the loan is costing £20m and in 2005 to 2006 it will cost £19m. It has to be repaid by 2007 to 2008.In their foreword to Ofcom’s plan, Lord Currie and Stephen Carter, the regulator’s chairman and chief executive, said: “We have now created an organisation which has over 25 per cent fewer people than the previous regulators and which has lower operating costs. This included non-reclaimable VAT and the costs of new duties.However, the regulated firms have also been faced with meeting an extra £56.8m in Ofcom’s set-up costs, funded by an interest-bearing loan from the Department of Trade and Industry but repayable by the regulated companies themselves. Although the five legacy regulators, including Oftel and the Radio Authority, had combined costs of £136m in their final year of operation, Ofcom’s initial costs resulted in a £144.2m bill. Ofcom, the media and telecoms watchdog, has unveiled a three-year plan to produce an environment in which it “costs less and does less”. A car bomb exploded outside a Shiite mosque in Baghdad today, killing at least 14 people and wounding 40, police and hospital officials said, in the latest violence in the lead-up to this month’s elections.

The feast coincides with the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.Attacks on Shiites have increased in the run-up to Iraq’s January 30th parliamentary and provincial elections. The company said the human tissue business had missed sales targets, and Pharmagene’s experimental treatment for cystic fibrosis had failed in clinical trials.Ronald Openshaw, brought in last year as finance director, will assume the chief executive role and is a front-runner to be the permanent replacement.Mr Openshaw’s first priorities include separating Pharmagene’s in-house drug development work from the tissue services business and recruiting more sales staff.Tissue services, which collects discarded human tissue from hospitals and uses it to help the development of drugs, moved into profit in 2003, but the company’s strategy to establish itself as a drug developer in its own right has proved slow to progress.. The shares traded above their flotation price of 285p only briefly. Yesterday, they closed up 1.25p at 30.25p.Last month’s double-dose of bad news proved the last straw for Mr Riddell. Pharmagene, the supplier of human tissue for use in drug research, has sacked its chief executive, a month after a profits warning. Holcim also announced plans to invest $800m (£428m) for a controlling stake in India’s second-biggest cement maker.. I have been well-paid anyway by my shareholders and if I wanted to I could have done the world cruise a long time ago.