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Several others are officials who regulated Equitable.Once one of the most respected financial institutions in the UK, Equitable was taken to the brink of collapse by a ruling by the House of Lords in July 2000 which forced it to honour £1.5bn in payments to holders of guaranteed annuity policies.. But the board has to work with the realities of the situation. What we need now are hard-headed, commercial decisions based on the facts and clear judgement in order to deliver and protect long-term shareholder value.”Mr Potter said that the proceeds would equate to 210p per Symbian share compared with the 145p paid when Psion and Nokia purchased Motorola’s stake in the venture last October.. Equitable Life will pore over criticisms of City regulators and government departments in today’s long-awaited report from Lord Penrose into the life insurer’s near-collapse, to establish whether there are grounds to seek compensation for policyholders through the courts. In a letter to investors, Mr Potter said: “As a founder of Symbian and the second largest shareholder in Psion I am acutely aware of the emotional attachment of many shareholders to the vision of Symbian. A group of private investors led by David Sharman, a former Royal Navy systems engineer, is also trying to block the deal and says that a recent internet poll showed that 78 per cent of individual shareholders opposed the sale.However, the Psion chairman David Potter, who has irrevocably pledged his 12 per cent stake in favour of the deal, maintained that Symbian was not ready to be floated and that the board was in a better position than Phoenix to judge the future performance of the venture. It is arguing that Psion shareholders would do much better from a stock market flotation of Symbian.

A simple majority of those shareholders voting is needed to approve the sale.The company also said that it had received indications of strong support from institutional shareholders, even though Psion’s biggest shareholder, Phoenix Asset Management, which holds a 13.5 per cent stake, is opposing the sale. The software company Psion vowed yesterday to press ahead with the £136m sale of its stake in the mobile phone technology venture Symbian, despite a concerted shareholder protest. A spokesperson for its regulatory impact unit said: “What they count as red tape is largely the value of the policies to recipients, such as enhanced maternity rights for women, the minimum wage for one and a half million workers and better working conditions.”. Businesses have been forced to foot a £30bn bill for extra red tape since Labour came to power in 1997, the British Chambers of Commerce said. At the end of 2003 Telefonica had a 77 per cent market share of fixed-line voice traffic and a market share of approximately 87 per cent.. Government must simplify the UK’s regulatory framework, and properly assess both the costs and benefits of new regulations.”The BCC said the Government had introduced almost 900 regulations in the past seven years, less than one-third of which were providing benefits to businesses to offset the additional costs But the Cabinet Office rejected the findings.

It generated turnover of €34.9m in the year to December. Carphone said the company was “marginally profitable” before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.The Spanish fixed-line market is worth €6.2bn a year, according to Carphone, of which €4.2bn relates to call revenues and €2bn to line rental and connection charges. Consumers no longer have to dial extra digits to access cheaper, alternative telecoms services or install special equipment in their homes.Carphone plans to launch a residential fixed-line service using Xtra’s existing infrastructure. The service will be sold to customers of Carphone’s Spanish retail chain of mobile phone shops, called The Phone House.Xtra already sells alternative telecoms services to small business and will continue to offer that service under its new ownership.In the UK Carphone has enjoyed considerable success with its talktalk service. It used Opal’s expertise to launch talktalk.Known in the industry jargon as “carrier pre-select services”, talktalk and Mr Dunstone’s new Spanish service are taking advantage of deregulation across Europe to offer alternative telecoms services to the traditional carriers.