By Will Sturgeon, 19 November 2000 09:15
NEWS The UK telco is set to launch a technology firm incubator, developing high-tech companies with the intention of floating them - in theory, greatly increasing any initial investment the company will make. The paper claims the new division, known as Brightstar, could be worth more than £2bn over the next three years and BT is believed to be seeking financial support from private equity firms. The Guardian claims the company is already in talks with 3i... Flagging up some of the pitfalls that await BT in its incubator scheme, is a report in the Independent which claims commercial websites are going bust at a rate of more than one a day. The report comes in the wake of news that UK B2C site Ready2shop.com has gone the way of the failed dot-com. The Financial Times reports that the women's online fashion store was forced to lay off staff and cease operations on Friday due to a lack of investment. The official line is that it is now in a state of 'hibernation' perhaps set to follow boo.com's Lazarus like return at a later date... The Financial Times also reports on the postponement of an online venture as US investment bank Merrill Lynch and HSBC have announced a delay in the launch of their joint online banking services for large investors. The venture was due to offer a share trading service and high yield bank account, to be operational later this year, for investors with more than $100,000. However, these services will now not be available until next year with an online shares information facility the only aspect of the service expected to met its original deadline...
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