Terry Murden: Grace but little favour as streamlining continues at Aegon

Yesterday's announcement should not have come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the company's cost-cutting programme, but that is little comfort to those affected.

Aegon has been streamlining jobs since revealing its restructuring plans last summer. It was always expected that a 25 per cent cut in costs would equate to some 600 job losses in Edinburgh and as of today the Gyle-based firm will be close to reaching that number.

New boss Adrian Grace has been instrumental in pulling the restructuring plan together and the targeted cuts are said to be going to plan.

Grace, who was promoted earlier this year to replace long-serving Otto Thoresen, says this is a challenging time for the company but insists the cost-cutting is key to getting Aegon on track.

He now needs to prove the growth strategy he talks about is also on track and that Aegon will begin rebuilding and not simply restructuring.

Grace believes it is important to be in those markets in which the company has scale. He wants to build the UK division as part of the international effort and play to the company's strengths. It explains why he has disposed of peripheral businesses.

He says the cost-cutting is hard, but necessary. But he also knows that making money in life and pensions is not easy and that encouraging people to save in an austere economy will be equally difficult.

For that reason the business has been reshaped around the markets where it believes it has strengths and can deliver returns for its Dutch parent.

He has put his top team in place and said he would start delivering on the "growth agenda" from the second quarter. We're now in that period so the last thing he needs to focus on is more cost-cutting. "We have a positive story coming," he told me in a recent interview. But promising jam tomorrow will not be enough.

Fresh internet flotations are crucially different

SOCIAL networking site LinkedIn made a startling debut on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, its shares immediately doubling in value as hungry investors poured in and the company raised $353 million (218m), valuing it at $4.3 billion - the largest valuation for a US internet company since Google went public in 2004.

This sounds like another licence to print money and some investors will have made huge fortunes.

But warnings abound of another bubble about to burst similar to that which saw the first generation of internet companies fall to earth.

There are differences. Investors who backed the 1990s online pioneers were essentially pouring their money into ideas and promises.

Some made huge profits as the shares rose in anticipation of something about to happen. When nothing happened the shares crashed and the companies fell with them.

The latest batch of companies - including Facebook, Google and Twitter - have a more solid financial base. Some may still be waiting to make a profit, but there is an income stream and with millions of subscribers they have massive selling potential.

LinkedIn generated $243m in revenue last year from 100 million users. It was expected to debut with a valuation of $3.3bn, but managed to add a billion within minutes of the market opening.

No wonder others, including online coupon business Groupon and the micro-blogging site Twitter, are lining up flotations.Brown's CV is tainted as IMF seeks new chief

EXACTLY eight years ago this week there was speculation about Gordon Brown's credentials for becoming prime minister and whether he'd better off taking a job outside politics. I recall suggesting a job at the International Monetary Fund.

He is once again in the frame, as a successor to Dominic Strauss-Khan, but circumstances have changed. In 2003, Brown's stock was still rising. The likelihood now is that the job will go to someone in the eurozone or the emerging markets. Anyone who understands the folly of building an economy on debt.