Lastminute shares drop below £1 for first time

Lastminute.com shares dropped below £1 for the first time yesterday. They are now worth less than a quarter of the £3.80 float price.

The company has no immediate worries - it still has £90 million in cash which is expected to see it through to profitability. But backers might be concerned - the business has a monthly cash burn of £4 million.

Someone else who might be slightly worried is Allan Leighton, the ex-head of Wal-Mart Europe and Asda, who joined Lastminute last month. He has seen his stock options fall below the exercise price, and he isn't even paid a salary. His financial incentive is based on the one million share options he got when he signed on.

T-Online, Europe's biggest ISP, reported an 86.5 per cent rise in sales for the nine months to 30 November to E542.6 million ($470.2 million), compared with the same period a year earlier. But it did report losses before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation of E53.5 million - worse than most expectations. ®

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