The American cable television group NTL will today announce a major shakeup of its regional management team in the UK with the appointment of a new managing director for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
Mr Ian Jeffers, until recently the managing director of NTL Ireland, will take up a new role next month, which will see him take responsibility for the group's UK regional consumer division.
Mr Jeffers, who is currently in charge of co-ordinating the roll out of NTL's broadband telecommunication services in the UK, had previously been deputy-managing director of NTL in Northern Ireland in 1997.
NTL first came to the North in 1996, with promises to invest up to £1 billion sterling (€1.63 billion) in the market and deliver more competitive telecommunication charges.
The appointment of Mr Jeffers, who first joined the group in 1995 as head of communications in the North, as managing director of its regional operations is according to industry sources an attempt by the American group to reposition itself in key markets outside England.
Like many other international telecommunication players, such as BT, NTL has a mountain of debt to manage.
The group's is estimated to have $13 billion (€15 billion) debt, which has forced it to postpone and slow down building programmes in the UK and Ireland.
