Pace lifted on chief appointment

Shares in Pace Micro Technology, which have almost halved since the television set-top box maker floated last year, recovered 3p to 60.5p yesterday after the company finally appointed a new chief executive .

Malcolm Miller, European chief executive of Sega Enterprises, will fill the void left by Barry Rubery, the company's founder who quit last February.

Pace, which came to the market last June at 172p, has been in the doldrums for some time. Digital broadcasting, which will lead to the indroduction of hundreds of new TV channels, has been slow to take off around the world, delaying orders for Pace's set top boxes which are used to decode TV pictures.

Mr Rubery departure coincided with a profits warning. Steve Jones, Pace's finance director and co-founder, also resigned in June.

Mr Miller has been at the Japanese computer games manufacturer since 1994, and is to take his post at Pace before the end of the year. He spent 16 years at Amstrad, the computer and electronics company, and became managing director in 1992.

Peter Morgan, chairman of Pace, said: "He has expertise in the fast-moving competitive electronic retailing field and previous experience as managing director of a public company."

Mr Miller, who is 42, has successfully integrated Sega's consumer division, and has been credited with returning it to profit. At Amstrad, Mr Miller was largely responsible for the acquisitions of Viglen and Dancall. David Hood, another co-founder of Pace who had been sharing the chief executive's role with Mr Morgan, will become director of technology.