International Business / The Pacific

Cable & Wireless Hires CEO: The British telecommunications company, hoping to find new direction after a boardroom battle and failed merger talks, has tapped American Richard Brown, the current chief of Kansas City, Mo.-based H&R; Block Inc. Brown had been CEO at the tax preparer and parent company of the CompuServe online network for nine months. C&W; parted company with Chief Executive James Ross in November after a fight with Chairman Lord David Young, a former Cabinet minister who also left the company. Its efforts to find a successor were complicated by merger talks with its main British rival, British Telecom, which would have led to the formation of an international giant with market capitalization of more than $53.1 billion. C&W; has a 57.5% stake in Hong Kong Telecommunications.