Cable & Wireless hands Wallace top job

Cable & Wireless (C&W) has appointed Graham Wallace as its new chief executive.

Wallace takes over with immediate effect, succeeding Dick Brown, who left the UK telco in January to take the top job at IT services giant, EDS.

Fifty-year-old Wallace has been the chief executive of Cable & Wireless Communications (C&WC) since 1997. Previously, he spent a decade at Granada Group.

In early 1997, he oversaw the four-way merger that created C&WC, establishing BT's most significant domestic telephony rival and the country's largest cable TV operation.

C&W said it had looked outside the company for a prospective leader, but found no one more suitable than Wallace.

Wallace has identified the Internet and the general trend away from voice and towards data as major issues for the company. C&W is rolling out its global network, and last year purchased the Internet business of MCI, as the US telco proceeded with its merger with WorldCom.

In recent months, speculation has grown that C&W may be the subject of a takeover bid - with Deutsche Telekom and the US Baby Bells the most likely candidates - but the company has declined in public to discuss such a move.

C&WC's chief operating officer, Greg Clarke, will succeed Wallace as chief executive at the firm. Wallace will remain a non-executive director of the company.