Telecoms group Cable & Wireless sought today to ease concerns over its leasing liabilities by saying a recently announced restructuring left it with only£400 million sterling in US lease commitments.
The £800 million cost of last week's US restructuringled telecoms analysts and fund managers to believe that anyfurther closures of loss-making US operations would prove soexpensive that C&W would have to press ahead no matter how bad the market.
This perceived lack of strategic flexibility scaredinvestors away in droves, and C&W shares plunged by 40 per centto a 19-year low of 65 pence last week.
But investors welcomed the news that US operations made upless than a third of C&W's ongoing lease commitments, which aremostly in the UK. The shares jumped eight per cent to 82p today.The British company announced last week it would windback US and continental European operations and shed about3,500 jobs at its cash-draining Global unit, which providescorporate Web site hosting and telecoms services.