Outlook: Reed shambles

HARD AS it to believe, the fiasco at Reed Elsevier goes from bad to worse. First the two obvious internal candidates, Nigel Stapleton and Herman Bruggink, decline the invitation to become chief executive of the new unitary board. Then it emerges they are each being paid an extra pounds 140,000 to keep running the ship while an external appointment is organised.

Now it transpires that the leading candidate - widely assumed to be Jonathan Newcombe of Simon & Schuster - has pulled out, leaving the Anglo-Dutch publishing group well and truly in the lurch. Two members of the board, including the chairman, have walked out in disgust and the headhunters are back on the case. The annual shareholders' meetings next week should be fun.