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It's well past time to recognise that the accounting profession's independence has been compromised he said

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"It's well past time to recognise that the accounting profession's independence has been compromised," he said.. The US Transportation Department today tentatively agreed to allow American Airlines and British Airways to work together to set rates and routes and sell each other's tickets. First, however, the airlines must give away 224 takeoff and landing slots for travel between US cities and Britain's Heathrow Airport, before they can get antitrust immunity for their alliance. Transportation Department officials said the agreement would allow four new US airlines to fly to and from Heathrow. The airlines have been seeking federal permission to form an alliance since 1996..

Misys is back on the acquisition trail. The software group was yesterday softening up the City for some deals in the coming months. That always makes investors nervous, but may be just what the doctor ordered for the company's healthcare and banking divisions. Half-year results for the period to 30 November came in according to the guidance given in December, but way below what the company had been suggesting just a few months before.

It was last year's acquisitions that spared the blushes of Kevin Lomax, the chairman of Misys. In particular Sunquest, which supplies software systems for hospitals, came in ahead of expectations, with sales of £29m. Group sales were up 18 per cent to £480m, but operating profits were 4 per cent lower and, after restructuring and acquisition write-downs, pre-tax profits were just £2.3m, compared to £37.4m.Misys cannot drive the business through acquisition alone, and the market will have serious reservations about supporting the company until it starts generating growth from existing businesses again Organic growth is currently running at minus 1 per cent. The company was trying to distance itself yesterday from comments by Mike Lynch of Autonomy, that the worst is over for the software sector.

"Cautiously optimistic" was the only guidance on offer, along with "at least the banking division hasn't got worse since December". Any substantial recovery is almost certain to be delayed until after the group's financial year-end in May.Not everyone in the industry believes Misys has the most exciting portfolio of products and there are growing concerns about competition. Misys denied that it is losing market share among its banking clients, as strong results from the likes of Tenemos and Royalblue would suggest, and a giant rebranding exercise to bring its myriad software acquisitions under the Misys label could make the products look more attractive. But margins have been squeezed and banks' increasing tendency to outsource IT management is not going to help.Even in healthcare, the recent tie-up of Pfizer, the world's biggest drug company, with Microsoft and IBM heralds much greater competition in the medium term.

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