Disbelief as Sir Bryan joins C&W

Senior British Telecom executives were yesterday said to have reacted with surprise to the appointment of Sir Bryan Carsberg, the former telephones regulator, to the board of Cable & Wireless's planned pounds 5bn cable group.

Sir Bryan, who from 1984 to 1992 headed the watchdog, Oftel, is to be one of three outside non-executive directors on the 13-member board of C&W Communications. He was responsible for moves to free up the industry, culminating in the end of the telephones duopoly between BT and Mercury in 1991.

The new group will be formed out of the merger of Mercury, C&W's UK subsidiary, with Bell Cablemedia, Nynex CableComms and the British operations of Videotron. The merger has been seen as a landmark step in providing tougher competition for BT in telephony services and BSkyB in the pay-TV business.

Last night a BT spokesman declined to comment on Sir Bryan's move. But another industry source said: "There's likely to be a sense of disbelief in BT about this. For Sir Bryan to join this company so soon after leaving Oftel appears to be insensitive, to say the least. No doubt he will use his knowledge of Oftel to benefit C&W."

However, Sir Bryan, who is a friend of BT's chairman, Sir Iain Vallance, brushed off the comments. "I notice Norman Tebbit didn't wait this long before joining BT's board," he said, pointing out that it was almost five years since he left Oftel. Lord Tebbit joined BT as a non-executive director in 1987, the same year he left the Thatcher government and just two years after departing from the Department of Trade and Industry, where he had played a key role in BT privatisation.

Sir Bryan, who joined the board of Nynex CableComms last year, said he was delighted at the job offer. He said: "I'm a great believer in this deal. It will provide really strong competition which has taken a while to get going in the cable industry since the early years. I have said many times that it has suffered from too much fragmentation and have supported moves towards consolidation." His salary and workload have yet to be decided.

C&W described the appointment as a "great coup" for Dick Brown, the chief executive who joined the group last year from the US. The other two outside non-executives are Valerie Gooding, managing director of Bupa, and John Keenan, a director of Grand Metropolitan.

The C&W Communications board will have just a single executive director. He is Graham Wallace, the new chief executive poached from Granada, while Mr Brown will be non-executive chairman. A further eight non-executives will represent the main shareholders in the venture. A separate executive board will be responsible for day-to-day matters. Three directors have so far been announced, including Mr Wallace, but C&W declined to give a target for further appointments.