The company said yesterday it is considering a number of access technologies to deliver broadband services.The remaining bidders, which include Energis and Norweb Telecom as well as Winstar Communications of the US, are understood to be committed to the auction. It is unclear, however, which companies plan to bid for which regional licences.The reserve prices range from a high of £4m for each of the three London area licences to a low of £100,000 for each of three Northern Ireland licences. The Radio Authority is charged with conducting the auction in a format similar to that employed for the third-generation mobile auction last spring that raised nearly £23bn for five universal mobile telecoms service licences.. Caledonia Investments is buying a 20 per cent stake in the fund management firm being established by Brian Ashford-Russell, Tim Woolley and David Magliocco, who are leaving Henderson Investors. Caledonia Investments is buying a 20 per cent stake in the fund management firm being established by Brian Ashford-Russell, Tim Woolley and David Magliocco, who are leaving Henderson Investors. Caledonia is the fund formed by the wealthy Cayzer family when they sold their British & Commonwealth shipping group in the mid 1980s.

Support from this bastion of the City is a feather in the cap for Mr Ashford-Russell and his two colleagues, who managed the highly successful Henderson Technology Trust and have now struck out on their own.Mr Ashford-Russell said last month he was looking to raise up to £1.5bn to launch a specialist fund management business The trio plan to start business early next year. Henderson Technology Trust rode the internet boom, growing at an annual rate of 67 per cent in the past three years.Caledonia shares fell 7.5p to 807.5p yesterday, having risen 22.6 per cent this year. London-based Caledonia has a 19 per cent stake in Close Brothers, which in turn owns Winterflood Securities, the specialist small companies stockbroker.. The UK biotechnology sector suffered its second major setback in a month yesterday as shares in Cantab Pharmaceuticals plunged 67 per cent following the surprise termination of its research collaboration with SmithKline Beecham into genital warts.

The UK biotechnology sector suffered its second major setback in a month yesterday as shares in Cantab Pharmaceuticals plunged 67 per cent following the surprise termination of its research collaboration with SmithKline Beecham into genital warts. Cantab shares fell 156p to 76.5p, valuing the company at just £34m, after it said its TH-GW compound was no better than a placebo in preventing the recurrence of genital warts. TH-GW was due for launch in 2003 and forecast to generate sales of $400m (£267m). The setback comes three weeks after shares in Scotia Holdings fell 60 per cent following its failure to win regulatory approval for its lead cancer drug.SB, which funded the warts research and owns 2.65 per cent of the group, is terminating its relationship with Cantab, thereby removing yet another of the selling points on which Cantab based its flotation in 1993. Last month, US regulators forced Glaxo Wellcome to terminate a research partnership with Cantab as a consequence of its proposed merger with SB.Cantab, which abandoned takeover talks with rival Peptide Therapeutics in the summer, is now vulnerable to a bid. Baxter International, the US drugs giant, Corixa and Avant, the US biotech firms, and even Peptide, in which Baxter has a stake, were yesterday tipped as possible bidders, with Powderject Pharmaceuticals, the UK vaccines group. Powderject recently outbid Cantab for Medeva's vaccine manufacturing facility.One analyst said: "The share price drop reflects the intangible loss of the SB partnership. But there's also a great deal of frustration that Cantab's management has squandered so many opportunities lately."Cantab accused the City of over-reacting "This is a setback, not a disaster," said a spokesman.

"It's just one of seven projects." Cantab, he said, was "always talking" to other biotechs about product collaborations and possible mergers.Cantab is not now expected to be profitable until 2004, two years after it is forecast to run out of cash.. Freeserve, the UK's leading internet service provider, yesterday fell below its listing price for the first time in almost a year, increasing the possibility it will be relegated from theFTSE 100 next Monday. Freeserve, the UK's leading internet service provider, yesterday fell below its listing price for the first time in almost a year, increasing the possibility it will be relegated from theFTSE 100 next Monday. Funds tracking the blue chip index pushed Freeserve shares as low as 146p at one point, below its listing price of 150p They closed 11.5 per cent down at 160p. The last time it fell below 150p was 2 November 1999.Freeserve has the FTSE 100's lowest market capitalisation, at £1.6bn, and the demerger into two companies of both P&O and BG means there will be 102 companies eligible for the FTSE 100 at the close of trade today.

The two companies with the lowest market value will be pushed out of the index next Monday. "The more Freeserve goes down, the higher the risk it's going to get dumped", and so people continue to sell, said Gerard van Hamel Platerink, an analyst at Schroder Salomon Smith Barney.Shares in Freeserve, which has about 2.3 million customers, have slumped 83 per cent from a high of 977.5p reached on 10 March. The company has suffered from a series of failed merger talks with its German rival T-Online, a decline in internet-related shares, and questions over the future of its business model. The share-price fall will continue because "on any basis Freeserve continues to be expensive relative to peers", said Mr van Hamel Platerink. Dixons, the PC retailer, has indicted it wants to sell its 80 per cent stake in Freeserve.Shares in Scoot , the online information service, also suffered yesterday, closing down 8.6 per cent at 85p..