Hollick's retirement from UBM sparks hopes of a break-up

Lord Hollick, the Labour peer and one-time media baron, has announced his retirement from United Business Media, the business he has overseen for the past 30 years.

The news prompted a 13.5p rise in UBM's shares to 484p yesterday on what analysts suggested might be hopes of a break-up or sale of the market research to publications group.

As well as big names like NOP in market research and the venerable Exchange & Mart, the group boasts a 35 per cent stake in Five, the television channel, which is up for sale. Disposal prospects received a setback recently after it appeared Channel 4 had cooled on the idea of a merger with Five.

Lord Hollick said he planned to leave UBM, where he is chairman, next May, by which time he will be 60. "I look forward to moving on to new opportunities," he added. It was not clear what those might be. He appeared to be passed over for the chairmanship of BAE Systems after Sir Dick Evans stepped down this year.

A leading business supporter of Labour, Lord Hollick has been an industrial adviser to three of its leaders, Neil Kinnock, John Smith and Tony Blair. He also founded the left-leaning Institute of Public Policy Research think-tank and is chairman of London's South Bank Centre for the arts.

UBM said it would seek a successor both within and outside the company. One front-runner is Malcolm Wall, a 12- year company veteran and now chief operating officer, who ran the broadcasting and entertainment side until it was sold.

A former grammar school boy, Lord Hollick's career probably reached its apogee after the group, then called MAI, merged with the Tory Lord Stevens' Express newspaper group in 1996.