Bondholders may have NTL chief replaced

Barclay Knapp's reign at NTL could soon be over as bondholders are reported to have called in a top corporate headhunter to garner a replacement CEO at the troubled cable company.

According to a report in The Sunday Telegraph, Miles Broadbent has been talking to a former executive at NTL's main rival Telewest to succeed Mr Knapp. Discussions with Philip Jansen are said to be at an advanced stage, although he was not available for comment on the matter.

Mr Jansen is known as a steady hand in the industry and his reputation for assured business nous derives mainly from his restructuring programme at Telewest which has seen the troubled cable company cut costs and begin to turn around its £5.3 billion debt mountain.

Should Broadbent persuade Jansen to take up the challenge, it will add fuel to suggestions that NTL and Telewest will consider merger proposals. Executives at both companies are said to be largely in favour of such a move and, by backing Jansen, bondholders will be widely interpreted as consenting to merger talks as Jansen is viewed as chief advocate for the companies combining their efforts.

Barclay Knapp's fate has been in the hands of bondholders since they gained majority control of NTL following the company's record $10.6 billion debt-for-equity swap to maintain solvency.

But for US investors, who saw their influence diluted during NTL's financial turmoil and the restructuring process, they sought legal recourse for grievances and are pursuing a class action lawsuit against bosses for disseminating misleading information on the company.

Mr Knapp has acknowledged that, should NTL emerge from its Chapter 11 protection, the company will be in control of bondholders – and so making his position tenuous.

"I'm not guaranteed a job going forward and I have to satisfy my new owners that indeed we're the right people for the job," he said.

(GMcG)