Redstone's sales rocket but it still makes a loss

Redstone Telecom has announced sales leap of 144 per cent to £17.8 million for the quarter ending June 30. Net loss before tax was £2.9 million, a year earlier it was £1.5 million for the same period. Redstone, which intends to offer broadband communication over DSL to SMEs, has 9,500 business customers.

The publishers of lads mag

have grabbed a five per cent stake in Firebox, the online supplier of games and gadgets. Dennis Publishing will give sponsorship and advertising in return for the share of the company. Firebox also plans to raise £1 million through a private placement offered exclusively online.

Amazon will launch its french operation tomorrow Amazon.fr. This follows the book retailers failure to buy established operation Alapage.com.

The world's largest chain of DIY stores, Home Depot, has gone online with a site it claims can handle 20 million customers a day. The site will offer around 40,000 products.

Maarten van den Bergh, former president of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and former MD of the Royal Dutch/Shell group of companies, is to join the board of BT as a non-executive director.

3i has pumped £5 million into eSubstance, a company which works with publishers to get book content online. eSubstance raised an additional £2.5 million in its first round of funding. ®

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