Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Cable & Wireless: We can do better

Published: Tuesday May 27, 2008

The newly appointed chief executive officer of Cable & Wireless’ Caribbean companies, Richard Dodd, has said that the company’s operations in Barbados need tightening up although Barbados has been a star performer among Cable & Wireless (C&W) companies worldwide.

Dodd also rejected the suggestion that Barbados was being penalised for C&W’s failings in Jamaica, where a JAM$4.2 billion loss was recorded and it was struggling to regain market share lost to rival Digicel.

Dodd, who will be based in Barbados, said, “C&W Barbados is a profitable and effective business but it is not effective enough and we need to improve the quality of service.”

The news came at a press conference and live teleconference link with C&W Caribbean chairman Phil Green, hosted by Dodd and C&W Barbados president Donald Austin to announce a new corporate structure that would see the creation of a pan-Caribbean operation with a new board of governance headed by Green.

Dodd said Barbados would be the management hub for Caribbean business but staff cuts would be effected there and throughout the region as the telecoms company sought a leaner, nimbler business.

“We are not penalising Barbados; we are applying the same rules to Barbados as everywhere else.”

C&W Barbados turned an operating profit of $115.5 million for its financial year ended March 31, 2007, despite rising cost-of-sales and operating expenditure.

Revenue for the 12-month period reached $371.2 million—four per cent better than the $355.6 million realised over the same period in 2006.

Responding to queries on whether the new board of governance had been approved by the board of directors or shareholders of individual publicly listed C&W companies, Dodd admitted that C&W was still trying to determine how “the new structure will play from a legal and statutory perspective.”


Source: Trinidad Guardian Newspapers
http://www.guardian.co.tt/business3.html

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