New Tunnel, same old track

IT'S goodbye Project Galaxy at Eurotunnel, and hello project 'plus ca change'.

Advisers to the new board, which took over after a rowdy Paris coup last week, now openly concede that the incoming directors 'are likely to do what the previous management was doing'.

Proposals under Galaxy, the brainchild of the ousted former management, included changing charges to boost traffic and revenue, and mortgaging revenues for cash.

The board will try to salvage something for shareholders from the company's lenders, who are owed £6.4bn. Talks with the lenders' committee, first revealed in the Mail last week, are due within days.

The company yesterday dismissed reports that the British and French governments-could intervene to prevent banks taking over. Without an agreement the banks could move in by summer.

The shares stand at 34 3/4p, valuing the equity at a somewhat improbable £880m.

Eurotunnel says it has so far avoided a top management exodus following the boardroom putsch. 'Everyone below board level is still here,' it says.