British telecoms firm Cable & Wireless (C&W) issued a profit warning for its 2006/07 financial year and said its chief executive was leaving in a reorganisation.
Britain's second-biggest corporate telecoms provider said UK earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation - excluding its Bulldog broadband Internet business - would be no higher in 2006/07 than in 2005/06.
Pressure on profit margins, the costs of reorganising its UK business and a reduction in one-off items that will boost 2005/06 results would all pressure underlying 2006/07 underlying UK earnings, the firm said in a trading update.
C&W shares, which once traded above £15 at the height of the technology boom in 2000, opened about 15 per cent lower at 97-1/2 pence.
C&W also announced plans to create two self-contained operational business units, called UK and International, and said chief executive Francesco Caio would step down after the start of the group's new financial year on April 1st.