Lycos loses UK managing director

Lycos UK joint managing director for portal and communications John van Vroenhoven is to leave the pan- European online group.

Van Vroenhoven joined Lycos Europe in 2002 from Dutch company Ilse Media. He was initially appointed as head of portal and was promoted to managing director for the Netherlands in 2004. He was then appointed as managing director of Lycos France during the latter half of 2004 and moved to Lycos UK in early 2005.

Van Vroenhoven says he is leaving the company because he wants to work in his native Netherlands. It is not known whether he is to be replaced. The company says that Angie Lopez, Lycos UK’s joint managing director for sales, will remain in her post.

Lycos Europe, which recently revamped its sites, announced last month that its revenues for the year to the end of December 2005 were â¬125.5m (&£87.1m), an increase of 21% over the previous year. The company says this increase was spread “almost evenly among the three main revenue mainstays” of paid services and shopping, internet access and advertising business.

Lycos Europe is no longer related to the US Lycos.com, owned by Terra Lycos, which was bought by Daum Communications, South Korea’s leading internet portal, for about $100m (&£55m) in 2004.