Lane Fox quits lastminute.com

MARTHA Lane Fox, the face of the dotcom boom, is quitting as an executive director of lastminute.com, the travel and holiday website.

Her shareholding in the company she co-founded six years ago is worth £28m after the shares dropped 25p to 275p. But Lane Fox, 30, said she had no plans to sell shares immediately.

'It has always been my ambition to see lastminute deliver a full year of profitability,' she said. 'Now this has been achieved it is the right time for the business and for me to explore other challenges. I have always made it clear I had a finite time here and then I would leave.'

Lastminute today reported its first pre-tax profit before goodwill amortisation and exceptional costs, of £224,000 against a loss of £16.2m in 2002. But after charges, pre-tax losses grew from £38.1m to £47.9m.

The value of deals done through the website more than doubled from £246m to £552m in the year to end-September.

Lane Fox stands down at the end of the year but will remain a non-executive director. She plans to take a holiday in Australia at Christmas and then find a job - possibly in the commercial world.

'It's got to be something I feel passionate about because I am still extremely driven and ambitious and want to challenge myself,' she said.

Co-founder Brent Hoberman said: 'Martha and I have worked together for six amazing years and her contribution has been tremendous.'

Lane Fox has recently been more high profile with her work for the charity Reprieve which helps prisoners people on Death Row around the world.

She had never feared lastminute would fail: 'I must have always believed it would work, whether through arrogance or ignorance, if I worked 27 hours a day every day for the first year.'