Chief Executive, David Andrews, has decided to step down from the Board with immediate effect and will be temporarily replaced by Finance Director, Ken Lever, while a successor is sought.

There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way out of the chaos to the platform’s edge. When he looked down over the edge, all he could see were the dark, cold, foreboding Atlantic waters.

As the fire approached him, the man had mere seconds to react. He could stand on the platform, and inevitably be consumed by the burning flames. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. The man was standing upon a “burning platform,” and he needed to make a choice.

He decided to jump. It was unexpected. In ordinary circumstances, the man would never consider plunging into icy waters. But these were not ordinary times – his platform was on fire. The man survived the fall and the waters. After he was rescued, he noted that a “burning platform” caused a radical change in his behaviour.

We too, are standing on a “burning platform,” and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour.

And then, there is Android. In about two years, Android created a platform that attracts application developers, service providers and hardware manufacturers. Android came in at the high-end, they are now winning the mid-range, and quickly they are going downstream to phones under €100. Google has become a gravitational force, drawing much of the industry’s innovation to its core.

Let’s not forget about the low-end price range. In 2008, MediaTek supplied complete reference designs for phone chipsets, which enabled manufacturers in the Shenzhen region of China to produce phones at an unbelievable pace. By some accounts, this ecosystem now produces more than one third of the phones sold globally – taking share from us in emerging markets.

While competitors poured flames on our market share, what happened at Nokia? We fell behind, we missed big trends, and we lost time. At that time, we thought we were making the right decisions; but, with the benefit of hindsight, we now find ourselves years behind.

Indeed, for a private equity consortium, possibly including sovereign wealth funds from the Middle East, an LBO of the U.K’s fourth-largest grocer would make an attractive play on U.K. real estate and could offer terrific returns if the cycle delivers. A sale of the business is an option for J Sainsbury, too.

A recent study for Sareum’s Aurora+FLT3 Kinase programme showed that the
leukaemia regressed to such an extent that no detectable cancer could be found
in any of the cases treated (ten in total) with a Sareum compound. By
comparison, leukaemia increased five to fifteen fold in the study examples
treated without Sareum’s compound. At six weeks following treatment, no
detectable cancer could be found in two of the ten examples dosed with the
Sareum compound. In the remaining eight treated examples, the average time taken
for the leukaemia to increase 5-fold was six weeks, compared to two weeks in the
untreated cases.

Back in Nov, H1 results revealed a downturn in organic growth. Guided
improvements in Panama are now coming through, but the Caribbean
remains tough. Guidance of $115m for Caribbean EBITDA in H2 is $15m
below consensus.

Press reports suggest Ladbrokes have approached Playtech. The Daily Telegraph reports that “Ladbrokes has begun exploratory talks with Playtech…over a potential merger”. Investment banks have been appointed to sound out Playtech “over possible strategic tie ups…with a share based-merger only one option under discussion”. The article correctly mentions the PTEC’s WMH Online tie up as a potential stumbling block.
n A merger has confused logic. To us it seems unclear why Ladbrokes would want to become a software company, and why Playtech wants to become a vertically integrated operator. Certainly, a number of Playtech’s licensees would be perturbed by a major competitor potentially having insights into their operating businesses.