MIDLANDS Electricity yesterday joined the string of privatised electricity companies buying back their shares when it splashed out pounds 153.4m on repurchasing 10 per cent of the group, writes Martin Flanagan. It has bought 21.16 million shares at 725p each compared with a market price yesterday of 713p, up 25p. The move followed shareholder approval at the annual meeting in August. A company spokesman said the buyback would boost earnings per share and help to create a progressive dividend policy.Yesterday's transaction is in harmony with similar moves by many of the other 12 regional electricity distributors.They include Northern Electric, Manweb, Norweb, South Wales Electicity and Eastern Electricity. PowerGen, the smaller of the two power generators, also bought back 0.6 per cent of its shares this year.Nigel Hawkins, utilities analyst at Hoare Govett, said: 'Companies repurchasing shares can be seen as unexciting, but we like it. Given the utilities' record in diversification, we would prefer seeing them do this with the money than investing it in Fiji.'.

MIRROR Group Newspapers is losing Murdoch MacLennan, managing director of the group's Scottish newspapers, but gaining Kelvin MacKenzie, the former editor of the Sun and briefly managing director of the BSkyB network, writes Gail Counsell. Mr MacLennan, who will leave the group, which publishes the Scottish Daily Record, at the end of December, is joining the rival Daily Mail and London Evening Standard group, Associated Newspapers as managing director. Mr MacKenzie becomes an executive director of MGN in charge of its television interests. Two weeks ago the group bought nearly 15 per cent of Scottish Television, Scotland's largest independent broadcaster. It has since increased its stake to almost 20 per cent, the maximum permitted under cross- media ownership rules.In addition, MGN has recently recruited Janet Street-Porter, head of BBC Television's independent entertainment production, to run its cable television interests.MGN, which has 28 per cent of the Independent and the Independent on Sunday, is planning to enter the cable television market in partnership with a number of US cable and telecoms companies. The result, Live TV, a new cable channel, is due to launch in 1995..

(First Edition) FISCAL PROPERTIES, which floated in April on a strategy of only investing in buildings occupied by government departments, is relaxing its investment criteria, writes Tom Stevenson. Gordon Bloor, chief executive, said the proposed acquisition of 156 buildings formerly owned by the London Borough of Croydon fitted with Fiscal's previously ultra-cautious investment policy because of the blue-chip nature of the tenants it would inherit through the pounds 17.5m acquisition.Croydon Land & Estates, which now owns the portfolio, is 95 per cent owned by Montagu Private Equity, a 35 per cent shareholder in Fiscal. CLE's chief executive is Mr Bloor's wife, Elizabeth Knowles.Mr Bloor denied that there was a conflict of interest, adding that the properties had been bought from CLE at the same price at which they had been acquired in May. Because of the potential for conflict, however, shareholders will have to approve the deal.Fiscal's first interim profits since flotation showed a loss before tax of pounds 562,000 compared with a pounds 164,000 profit in the first half of 1993. The figures included pounds 1.3m of non-recurring costs.Fiscal's shares have performed badly since flotation, falling from 78p to 66p.. GREATER demand from housebuilders and rising prices across the range of its products helped Ibstock, Britain's third-largest brick maker, back into the black in the six months to June. But Ian MacLellan, managing director, warned that, despite builders' complaints about increasing raw material prices, further rises were necessary to restore margins. Flagging demand and over-supply caused a collapse in prices during the recession, and Ibstock fell to a pounds 27.6m loss in 1992 followed by an pounds 18.7m deficit last year.Interim pre-tax profits were pounds 4.4m, compared with a pounds 17.1m loss in the first six months of 1993 when an pounds 18.7m charge was taken against the closure of a Portuguese paper mill.