LONDON (Bloomberg) - Evolution Group Plc, a London-based stockbroker and investment bank, said 2004 profit almost tripled on higher revenue from investment banking and asset management, including the flotation of a Bermuda-based oil and gas exploration company.

The company plans to buy back as much as ten percent of its stock.

Net income rose to ?45.6 million ($86.5 million pounds), or 17 pence a share, from 16.2 million pounds, or 6.3 pence, a year earlier, Evolution said. Revenue rose 61 percent to 65.5 million pounds. The company plans to buy back as much as 42 million pounds of its shares this year, Finance Director Graeme Dell said.

Evolution's securities unit, which focuses on companies with a market value below 2 billion pounds and accounts for 83 percent of total revenue, arranged more transactions and raised more capital for clients last year. The Christows fund management unit increased assets 34 percent to 640 million pounds, boosting recurring income.

“Our pipeline's very strong,” Dell said in a telephone interview. “It's not just that everyone's doing transactions, we're having to get out there and be competitive.”

Evolution Securities boosted revenue to 54 million pounds from 32 million pounds in 2003, working on transactions including the 60 million-pound initial public offering of Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd., a Bermuda-based oil and gas exploration company, and the 97 million-pound share sale by Sterling Energy Plc in November.

Shares of Evolution have risen 13.3 percent so far this year, giving the company a market value of ?422 million.

Evolution has more than ?160 million in cash, including about 52 million from the sale of its remaining stake in IP2IPO Group Plc this month, to put toward the share buyback, Dell said.

LONDON (AP) - Great North Eastern Railway - owned by Bermuda-based Sea Containers Ltd. - which runs one of Britain's most prestigious rail routes, former home of the famous Flying Scotsman train, will continue operating the network for at least another seven years, rail authorities said yesterday.

GNER, whose licence to run the East Coast Main Line expires in April, will pay the government 1.3 billion pounds (US$2.5 billion; euro1.9 billion) over the life of the new franchise, the Strategic Rail Authority said. The seven-year franchise, which starts May 1, will be extended to ten years if performance targets are met.

GNER, which has run the East Coast line since 1996 and is owned by Bermuda-based Sea Containers Ltd., defeated rival bids from Virgin Trains, owned by tycoon Sir Richard Branson, as well as from Danish rail company DSB and British transport giant FirstGroup.

The East Coast franchise includes high-speed services from London King's Cross station to Leeds, York and Newcastle in northern England and to the Scottish cities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

GNER has promoted the historic line as the “Route of the Flying Scotsman.” The Flying Scotsman, which ran on GNER's lines, was the first steam locomotive confirmed to exceed 100 miles per hour (160 kph).

“We look forward to building a bigger and better railway, running extra services with more reliable and more comfortable trains, and carrying many more passengers,” said GNER's chief executive, Christopher Garnett.

However, the RMT rail union warned that the big premium GNER was paying to extend the franchise could lead to cutbacks. “It raises the threat of service cuts, massive fare rises and a huge squeeze on rail workers' jobs and conditions,” RMT general secretary Bob Crow said.

NEW YORK (Bloomberg) - Bermuda-registered Loral Space & Communications Ltd., the third-largest US satellite maker, and its creditors reached an agreement to file a new bankruptcy exit plan that still provides no payment to shareholders.

Loral will file the new plan soon, Stephen Karotkin, the company's lawyer, said at a hearing in US Bankruptcy Court in New York. Karotkin didn't provide details.

Loral was pursuing a plan to give unsecured creditors and bondholders all the common stock in a reorganised company valued at up to $800 million. Shareholders would get nothing. A group of shareholders owning nine percent of Loral's common stock opposed the original plan.

“We have been engaged in good-faith arduous negotiations since December, and I am pleased to say that has resulted in this plan,” Karotkin said. “We believe this plan will enable the debtor to emerge in an expeditious manner from Chapter 11.”

Loral filed the original plan last year. Under its terms, all the common stock would go to creditors and bondholders owed roughly $1.5 billion, and Loral's two business lines, Space Systems/Loral and Loral Skynet, would emerge as separate subsidiaries of the reorganised company.

The new proposal “is a substantially different plan,” said David Botter, a lawyer representing Loral's committee of unsecured creditors. Botter said the committee endorses the plan.

At today's hearing, US Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain blocked the shareholders and others from filing competing plans to get Loral out of bankruptcy through May 31. The shareholder group opposed the extension.

“The plan will not be consensual with the shareholders,” the group's lawyer, Tony Christ, said. “Loral's equity should have the opportunity to bring in other plans.”

Loral shares were recently unchanged at 21 cents, in over- the-counter trading.