Kevin Maxwell has taken a £180,000 pay cut to save cash at his American telecommunications company.

Mr Maxwell, 44, who lives near Wallingford, is chairman of Telemonde, which buys bandwidth - space in telephone networks - from large telecom companies, reselling it to Internet companies and other businesses.

Mr Maxwell, once Britain's biggest bankrupt, founded the company with Adam Bishop and Harry Pomeroy. He had been entitled to £240,000 a year under a contract that lasts until at least June 30, 2002. Larry Trachtenberg, who is vice-president, was entitled to £185,000 a year.

Both Mr Maxwell and Mr Trachtenberg were acquitted of fraud in 1996 after the collapse of companies controlled by the late Robert Maxwell, Kevin's father.

Telemonde reported a net loss of £10m for the half-year, compared with £3m last year, so Mr Maxwell and his fellow executives have agreed to go on quarter pay for six months.

Telemonde's Internet services company telemonde.net, based in Geneva, has closed down and all staff have been made redundant following a "thorough business review of its funding requirements and sales projections".

Telemonde's president and chief executive Adam Bishop said the results reflected "the difficult trading conditions affecting our advisory services business, a further slowing down of bandwidth sales and the continuing shift in buyer preference for leasing rather than owning bandwidth".

Mr Maxwell said: "We are still soldiering on and doing the best that we can in difficult market conditions."