Royal London hit by [pounds sterling]31m payout; News in brief.

MUTUAL insurer Royal London faces a [pounds sterling]31m bill to compensate 30,000 customers who were mis-sold endowments by United Assurance which it took over last year. It must also pay [pounds sterling]700,000 after the Personal Investment Authority fined United Friendly Insurance and Refuge Assurance, which merged to form United, [pounds sterling]350,000 each. An investigation showed that five rules on sales of savings endowments were breached between August 1997 and July 1998. Among them were failing to ensure customers could afford payments and failing to keep customer records. Royal accepted the findings and said it would also look at mortgage endowments.

Letsfight.com

THE trustees of letsbuyit.com are denouncing 'deplorable' management, administrative 'chaos' and bickering in the boardroom for the stricken e-tailer's collapse.

Management replied by hiring the Dutch law firm Van Doorne to fight the trustees' attempts to declare the company bankrupt.

Letsbuyit owes [pounds sterling]12m. Its shares collapsed afresh in Amsterdam to just 14p.

They were 414p in July

Higher Dimension

DIMENSION Data, the systems integrator, saw first half profits in its Asian division leap 69pc to [pounds sterling]20m pre-tax.

Online strides out

ONLINE Travel, with [pounds sterling]2.5m maiden eight-month losses to October, is planning acquisitions of online and traditional travel agencies across Europe.

Colefax share leap

SHARES in wallpaper and fabric firm Colefax surged 12 /2p to 861/2p after a 22pc rise in half-year profits to [pounds sterling]2.4m.

Dividends rise 4pc to 1.3p.

will launch its US fabric brand Larsen in the and Europe in March.

Fruit stalls on Net

FRUITERER Fyffes is scaling back its Internet activities. It spent just under [pounds sterling]10m on its worldoffruit.com subsidiary, launched in December 1999.

The website will continue, but is not expected to contribute to group revenues.

SCi gets bashed

SCi Entertainment, best known for the computer game Carmageddon, crashed from 315p to 166p, wiping [pounds sterling]28m off its value after warning of losses of up to [pounds sterling]3m for the 15 months to last September. Brokers had expected profits of [pounds sterling]1.8m.

Wall Street

IN New York the Dow Jones index closed 93.94 points up at 10678.28.