The payout comprised a £500,000 bonus, £467,000 of "benefits in kind" as well as £500,000 of salary. David Newlands, who was made executive chairman after Greg Hutchings was ousted, saw his pay cut from £312,000 to £105,000. Mr Hutchings was forced out after revelations of boardroom excess at the engineering group.. Shares in the headhunter Whitehead Mann slumped 25 per cent yesterday after the company warned the downturn in the banking sector had taken its toll on its key executive search business. Publicity-shy, there are few photographs of Ms Mann and she does not give interviews. Her reputation in the industry, though, is unrivalled and recent successes include putting Clara Furse into the London Stock Exchange, Sir Christopher Bland into BT and finding Luc Vandevelde for Marks & Spencer.Whitehead Mann tried to play down her departure yesterday.

"In 1997, when the business floated less than five people accounted for 70 per cent of the revenue. Today 50 people account for 70 per cent of the revenue," Stephen Lawrence, the chief executive, said. "We're no longer dependant on one or two key individuals and Anna and her whole team account for less than 8 per cent of revenue."The company warned yesterday that operating profits, before exceptional items, for the year to 31 March would be "materially" below current market expectations. The stock closed down 27.5p at 82.5p.It expects sales to be in line with current forecasts of about £65.5m but profits are now expected to be more like £10m – some £2.5m lower than previous forecasts. Next year, it predicts sales will be flat.The company responded to the downturn by slashing its final dividend to 2.5p from 8p last year, producing a payout of 7p for the whole year down from 13.6p the year before. Revenue had remained "relatively stable" on a month-by-month basis.Whitehead Mann also announced it had sold its Munich arm to management for a nominal sum plus liabilities – leaving it with operations in London, New York, Paris and Hong Kong.. Independent News & Media, the parent company of The Independent and The Independent on Sunday, yesterday announced plans to strengthen its balance sheet through a €103m (£70m) rights issue and the sale for €88m of its British regional newspaper business.

Together with the €65m received in November last year from the disposal of convertible notes in APN, the group's Australian offshoot, the combined effect will be to raise €256m of new funding to help with future development.Ivan Fallon, the chief executive of Independent News & Media (UK), said the fundraising was part of an ongoing programme of debt reduction after heavy spending on expansion in recent years. The effect would be to return the group to investment grade, enabling it to refinance at lower cost. Mr Fallon said the regional titles, although profitable, had reached something of a dead end in a consolidating market and it therefore made sense to take advantage of Gannett's "premium offer".The group remained wholly committed to its two national titles in Britain, which were flagship products for the group and "central to what we are trying to achieve as a company".The two titles are a core source of quality editorial for the company's newspapers around the world. For instance, The Independent's recent supplement on the war in Iraq was reproduced in titles as far flung as Dublin and New Zealand, South Africa and Australia.Mr Fallon said that the outlook for The Independent and its Sunday stablemate was better than it had been for a long time, with a rising share of circulation and advertising in the British broadsheet market.The rights issue accompanied annual results which showed continued progress in local currency terms across all the group's operations. The southern hemisphere, unaffected by war against Iraq, remained particularly strong.Sir Anthony O'Reilly, the executive chairman of Independent News & Media, said the various capital raising initiatives would provide "a greatly fortified capital structure" for the group, which expects to show "a meaningful improvement for 2003". Sir Anthony has pledged to take up his full entitlement in the rights issue in respect of his 26.7 per cent holding in the company.Group operating profits for last year before exceptional items rose from €219.9m to €223.2m.

The company is taking an asset impairment charge of €82.5m on its 50 per cent interest in the Irish cable operator Chorus. In common with other cable operators, the assets are being written down to nothing.. Cambridge Antibody Technology's attempt to take over its biotech sectormate, Oxford GlycoSciences, was holed below the waterline yesterday, when CAT said its own future royalty revenues may fall well below expectations. Analysts said that made it impossible for CAT to improve its all-share offer for OGS to trump a rival bid from Celltech.OGS maintained its opposition to the £101m cash offer from Celltech, saying three more companies had indicated they may be interested in bidding.Abbott wants to cut the royalties it pays on drugs developed using CAT's "phage display" technology, which identifies antibodies in the human immune system that can be copied to treat disease. It says their collaboration, signed in 1993, allows it to reduce the royalty rate paid to CAT if it has also needed to license intellectual property from elsewhere to develop the drugs.Peter Chambr?CAT's chief executive, disagreed. "Our interpretation is that this change should only be made if they have had to take other phage display licenses, which they haven't. Abbott are seeking to draw into the net other licences they have taken that relate to drug targets and the antibody manufacturing process."The dispute immediately threatens royalties from Humira, a rheumatoid arthritis drug launched in January and which Abbott believes could have annual sales of more than $1bn (£640m).