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To: Charles Tutt who wrote (19599)	3/22/2002 3:26:21 PM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 21876

"George Simpson is still taking the blame for loading Marconi with debt in a spending spree that turned the old-economy General Electric Company into a high-tech telecoms business." <<That the mistake Marconi and Alcatel made. Turning an old economy and something sexy du jour. Siemens which had a similar past, stuck to its guns. It is doing fine: siliconinvestor.com NEWSMAKER-New Marconi<MONI.L> boss at eye of storm Reuters, 03.22.02, 8:45 AM ET LONDON, March 22 (Reuters) - When Mike Parton took the unenvied chief executive job at Marconi, investors said he would be judged on his ability to steady the tottering telecoms equipment maker and sort out its financing needs. But there were few recriminations on Friday when the firm dropped the bombshell that it had failed to secure a crucial loan deal because dismal business conditions had got worse. "Parton has done all he could, given the circumstances," said Per Lindberg, an analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. Over-optimism was the most serious charge levelled at the former boss of Marconi's network division, who was plucked from relative obscurity to take on the top job last September. Six months after his exit, Parton's spendthrift predecessor George Simpson is still taking the blame for loading Marconi with debt in a spending spree that turned the old-economy General Electric Company into a high-tech telecoms business. Marconi was already in a parlous state when network division head Parton took over. The collapse of its markets had triggered a string of profit warnings and thousands of job cuts. More recently no one could have foreseen the corrosive effect of Enron's collapse, analysts say, which made Marconi's customers even more reluctant to resume investing, particularly with some of their accounting practices under scrutiny. "The Enron debacle has spread contagion to many prospective telecoms equipment buyers," Lindberg said. If Parton is to be faulted, analysts say, it is for wishful thinking. In January, he asserted: "I think there are many fewer questions now about whether we're going to survive...I'm certain we're going to make it." "Parton cannot be entirely absolved. It didn't take very much to recognise that this industry was going to be in the doldrums longer than Marconi thought," said one London analyst, who declined to be identified. Parton has worked on and off for Marconi since 1980 when it was GEC, with products ranging from defence equipment to household appliances. He left in 1986 to join a British telecommunications company and came back to Marconi in 1991 as finance director of its telecoms venture, GPT. He then served in two other senior management posts before he was put in charge in 1998 of the creation of U.S.-based Marconi Communications Ltd, a division that helped spearhead the company's reincarnation as a telecoms equipment company. Before joining GEC, Parton had held a number of finance appointments in ICL Plc, one of the oldest names in British computing, which was taken over by Japan's Fujitsu Ltd. He was not available for comment on Friday. Market watchers say he will need all his good humour and optimism as he tries to steer the company through its latest crisis. Copyright 2002, Reuters News Service