Afternoon:
14°c
Charles Allen, former chief executive of ITV, today joined the board of Virgin Media, the cable company which unsuccessfully attempted to take over the Coronation Street broadcaster two years ago.
This week Allen also took a job as a consultant to Goldman Sachs, which in turn was part of a consortium which tried to bid for ITV earlier in 2006.
Not only that, but as part of his Goldman role he sits on the board of Big Brother maker Endemol, whose boss Jon de Mol recently suggested he might bid for ITV.
Allen was forced out of ITV by angry investors in the summer of 2006 although he did not leave until October of that year.
Michael Grade, who was poached from the BBC, took up his post as executive chairman at the start of 2007.
ITV rejected the consortium bid of 130p a share made by Goldman along with private-equity firms Apax and Blackstone, which was spearheaded by former BBC director general Greg Dyke.
Allen had left by the time of the bid from what was then NTL but soon became Virgin Media. That was scuppered by the intervention of BSkyB, which bought a 17.9% stake for just short of £1billion.
ITV will be kicked out of the FTSE 100 later today.
