In Britain, BT has decided that the £5billion or so it has spent on football rights is not the best of investments, and chief executive Philip Jansen wants more focus on delivering fibre for UK broadband users.
New York telecoms behemoth Verizon Communications is on a similar journey – it is disposing of its media brands Yahoo! and AOL to private equity. It also has disposed of blogging platforms Tumblr and Huff Post.
Verizon found it hard to compete in the digital advertising space with online giants Facebook and Google. It is doubling down on efforts to roll out 5G super-fast mobile networks across the US.
Shares in asset manager M&G have risen today after it raised dividend payments as it unveiled its first full set of results since demerging from Prudential in 2019.
The group increased the final dividend by 2.6 per cent to 12.23p per share, from 11.92p in 2019, as it said its balance sheet remained robust after having generated nearly £1billion in 2020.
The hike in dividends comes despite the group reporting lower pre-tax profits of £788million in 2020 - although most of the 31.4 per cent fall is down to increased costs associated with becoming an independent business.
Dividend hike: Asset manager M&G increased the final dividend by 2.6 per cent to 12.23p
One of Britain s biggest investment managers will today reveal that it is launching a £5billion fund to invest in private firms, mainly in this country, which are pioneers in creating new green and sustainable technologies and enterprises.
The project, code-named Catalyst, will sit inside M&G s £50billion Pru Fund, which has 5m customers in Britain and across the globe.
The new fund forms part of a strategy by M&G chief executive John Foley to convert the fund manager s huge £350billion of assets under management on to a more sustainable basis.
M&G s £50bn Pru Fund forms part of a strategy by chief exec John Foley (pictured) to convert the fund manager s huge £350bn of assets under management on to a more sustainable basis