Marconi's Parton got property benefits

The troubled telecoms equipment maker Marconi yesterday admitted its chief executive Mike Parton had also received property-related benefits.

Marconi said that these included the payment of stamp duty and legal fees on the purchase of his apartment in London's exclusive Mayfair district.

However, Marconi denied it was launching an internal investigation into the property deals it carried out with senior executives and insisted there were no other transactions to report. "There is no internal [property] probe in Marconi," a spokesman for the company said. "Comments quoted were taken out of context."

The denial came after reports suggested the company's board had ordered a special inquiry into the issue and that the findings would be presented to directors this week.

The company would not comment on the extent of Mr Parton's gain other than to say the sum was included within a previously reported benefits package of £281,000.

The deal was part of a relocation package agreed with Mr Parton after he was promoted to the position of chief executive and his office moved to London from Coventry.

Last week, the company admitted it had shelled out roughly £3.3m buying two houses from Charlie Foreman, a former senior sales executive who was previously the company's director of communications, as part of a relocation package to Coventry from London and as part of a redundancy deal.

A spokesman for Marconi insisted yesterday the company had not carried out any other housing deals for any of its other executives.

Marconi, which bought Mr Foreman's London house for £1.7m and sold it at a £200,000 loss, is still looking to sell the £1.6m Buckinghamshire house it also bought from him in February of this year.