Upbeat Telewest takes knife to losses

BRITAIN'S second-largest cable company Telewest, which is poised to agree a debt-for-equity swap that will almost wipe out its shareholders, today revealed a sizeable reduction in losses.

Now that it has stopped digging up the streets to lay cables and concentrated on selling customers TV, telephone and internet services, the company's financial position is gradually improving.

Telewest cut first-half losses after tax by 13% to £208m, on unchanged revenues of £674m. At the operating level the improvement was more marked, with losses cut from £119m to £41m in the six months to June.

On the City's widely-used measure of earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation there was a 20% rise to £220m.

'We expect to build on this in the second half, and July shows our initiatives starting again to grow sales,' said managing director Charles Burdick.

'The launch of UK cable's first two-megabyte broadband service is reinforcing our leadership position and soon we will also be launching a wireless self-installation broadband operation for existing digital customers.'

Telewest said at the start of this week that its existing shareholders would end up with just 1.5% of the company under the terms of a deal it is currently negotiating with holders of £3.5bn of its debt.