US giants help NTL ease debts

NTL, the troubled cable company, yesterday took steps to address its debt problems by obtaining $250m (£103m) in vendor financing from Cisco Systems and Nortel Networks, the North American telecoms equipment makers.

Cisco and Nortel have in effect given NTL more generous credit and payment terms. The deal follows a similar agreement, worth £200m, struck recently with General Electric's GE Capital arm.

NTL shares rose as much as 5 per cent in New York.

About half of the new funding will be go towards the cable company's working capital requirements.

Analysts said NTL still needed a further £46m, according to recent indications from its management.

Barry Murphy, an analyst at Bear Stearns, said: "This announcement [is] a slight positive."