It's a cleaner, simpler company to run," said one fund manager.Some investors suggested it might be better to split the number two role at BT and appoint both a chief executive and a chief operating officer with the specific task of cutting costs.Mr Gardner worked briefly with both Mr Hampton and David Varney, the chairman of mmO2 in the run-up to the demerger of the old British Gas four years ago. He is credited with the revival of the British Gas brand and moving the company into a host of other utility services. Similar skills will be needed at BT as it seeks to exploit its UK retail monopoly to develop other services for customers.Mr Wallace is seen as a potential successor because of his experience in telecoms. BSkyB's Mr Ball and Carlton's Mr Murphy could also bring an extra dimension to the role as the telecoms and media sectors increasingly converge.The market greeted the news of Sir Peter's departure by marking BT shares higher They closed 11p up at 348p."The timing's about right. The company is splitting in two and I really think that a fresh approach is required," said Richard Bell, a fund manager at Friends, Ivory & Sime.Although Sir Peter is blamed for presiding over a huge destruction of shareholder value during his six years at BT, Sir Christopher said the accusation did not stand up to examination. BT shares are back now at just above the level they were at when Sir Peter joined in January, 1996.

However, this year BT shares have been the best performing telecom stock and in the five years up to the end of August, BT ranked 36th out of the FTSE 100 companies in terms of total shareholder return.. There's as much luck as judgment in oil and gas exploration, and Cairn Energy has had a charmed year. There's as much luck as judgment in oil and gas exploration, and Cairn Energy has had a charmed year. The group was yesterday able to quantify the results from its latest drilling tests off the east coast of India, confirming that its oil and gas projects in the region have commercial development potential. It reckons it will be able to extract 80-120 million barrels of oil from its "M" and "P" discoveries in the area, and it hasn't even got to "Q" yet.That's so much gobbledegook to the uninitiated, but it means it has at least three commercial discoveries from 10 wells and that Cairn is sitting on an oil and gas discovery so large that it will not be able to commercialise it by itself. Analysts expect it to partner with one of the industry's global giants, which would have the financial muscle and the deepwater drilling experience necessary for the task.That will be good news, and not all of it is in the share price, which rose 3p to 294.5p yesterday and is now twice the level of 18 months ago. The risk may be that falling oil prices and fear of political instability on the Indian sub-continent could mean the terms of a partnership might not be as favourable as they had looked a few months back, but then the shares have fallen from their high of 367.5p.While oil prices may have broken decisively through the bottom of Opec's target range of $22-$28 per barrel, few people expect a return to the $10 price that wreaked so much havoc on oil firms' balance sheets three years ago. At that time, Cairn survived well because of its relatively low gearing, and is likely to manage again without being forced to dispose of any assets.

Meanwhile, it is expected to hoist production levels by some 20 per cent next year.Cairn shares sit 12 per cent below CSFB's calculation of their net asset value, a deeper discount than rival Enterprise Oil. The economic and political climate counsels against buying until the direction of the oil price becomes clearer, but they remain a solid hold.St James's PlaceUnit Trust sales collapsed in September as the stock market slump before 11 September, and the volatility afterwards, made Joe Public fearful of the market. St James's Place Capital doesn't cater for Joe Public, though. It is investment adviser and life insurer to the wealthy, among whom are the sophisticated investors who rode with City fund managers back into equities at the end of the week after the terror attacks. So St James's new business figures for the three months to 30 September didn't look half as bad as feared.Unit trust sales fell a relatively modest 12 per cent in the quarter and are running just 8 per cent down for the year as a whole.