Despite the recurring flurries, the more considered market view is that the family is unlikely to be persuaded, in the present climate, to sell.Other possibilities which enthral the market include enfranchisement of the non-voting shares and a suspicion the group will embark on the takeover trail; blue-blooded stockbroker Cazenove is one name often in the frame.Interim figures are due tomorrow. Last week the vulnerability of Hambros was underlined by the appearance on its share register of Regent Pacific, an aggressive Far Eastern fund management group.Schroders has the protection of a family shareholding hovering just below 50 per cent. Schroders, the family controlled merchant bank, outpaced the rest of the stock market. Its voting shares soared nearly 7 per cent to 1,465p and its non-voters just over 6 per cent to 1,135p as the usual array of takeover bid stories swirled around. With Barings, Kleinwort Benson and SG Warburg falling victims to overseas strikes the remaining independent City merchant banks have acquired a rarity value.
Of the four leading “gentlemanly, honourable, blue-blooded British merchant banks” only Hambros and Schroders have market roles; Robert Fleming and NM Rothschild have retained unquoted status.Hambros and Schroders suffer every so often from bouts of market speculation. Safeway and Asda recorded strong gains.Tony MacNeary of NatWest said the move would weaken the sector and compound the problems of weaker competitors.. Asda is tipped as the most likely to respond as it has styled itself as the lowest price supermarket.

Tesco’s shares fell 9p to 291p, Sainsbury dropped 8p to 376.5p, and Asda closed 4p down at 106p.Tesco has struck while Sainsbury is promoting its loyalty card and new figures yesterday showed it was losing ground to Tesco once more in the battle for market share.Figures compiled by market research group AGB showed that in the four weeks to 25 August, Tesco’s share of the UK market increased from 20.7 to 21.4 per cent, compared with the same period last year Sainsbury’s share fell from 19.1 to 18.6 per cent. The move immediately sparked a reaction from Sainsbury, which launched its autumn price savers campaign last week, including “buy one, get one free” deals on 700 items. “If there are any products cheaper at Tesco, we will match them,” Sainsbury said.
Shares in all the supermarket groups fell as the City anticipated a reaction from rivals. Tesco is investing pounds 30m in its “Unbeatable Value” campaign and if a customer can find a comparable item cheaper elsewhere it will refund twice the price difference. Tesco opened a new round in the supermarket wars yesterday when it announced plans to cut the price of more than 600 of its most popular lines. Refuge and United Friendly yesterday postponed the key shareholders meeting on their pounds 1.5bn merger from next Monday until 26 September after agreeing to improve the terms. Two of the largest shareholders, Prudential and Britannic Assurance, are believed to be ready to accept the merger on the changed terms, but Refuge needs longer to work out the details.
However, Perpetual, the fund management group with 7.5 per cent of the shares, said yesterday that new proposals were inadequate.Refuge and United are to issue a note promising additional payments to be made if the Department of Trade and Industry decides to allow some of the group’s “orphan estate” of unclaimed life assurance assets to be given to shareholders.Refuge said in a statement last night that it nevertheless believed that on the basis of its discussions with the DTI, there would not be additional value released for shareholders.Sources close to the company said it still believed it might have won the vote on Monday, but there was no sense in upsetting shareholders.Perpetual would also like to see a 50:50 split of shareholdings in the enlarged group instead of 53 per cent for United and 47 per cent for Refuge..

“We would seek to in-fill in the areas beyond our own transmission masts, and we feel it ought to be an opportunity for BSkyB as well to sell satellite dishes.”Mr Elstein said he would also be talking with cable operators, and hoped to secure carriage deals to allow Channel 5 into cable homes in time for the launch on 1 January 1997.BSkyB sources confirmed the plans to develop close links. It is expected that talks will begin in earnest in the next few weeks.”There is no secret that there is a close working relationship between David Elstein and senior executives at Sky,” a BSkyB insider said last night.The Independent reported earlier this year plans by BSkyB and Channel 5 to bid jointly for programming.The much more extensive co-operation pact now under consideration is seen as a logical next move, and will be directed personally by Mr Elstein on behalf of Channel 5.. It would also allow Channel 5, backed by Pearson and United News & Media, to develop innovative ways of promoting the new service, perhaps by working jointly with BSkyB’s huge marketing team.
In exchange, BSkyB would use its ties with Channel 5 to encourage the take-up of satellite dishes. In addition, it is expected that the satellite giant could redirect some of its pounds 100m-plus annual advertising budget to Channel 5 to promote its 40 pay-television channels.Traditionally, Sky has used cinemas, newspapers and radio to advertise its pay-television services, partly because of what Sky insiders regard as an unco-operative attitude from the commercial broadcaster, ITV.David Elstein, chief executive designate of Channel 5 and until last week the head of programmes at BSkyB, said: “I will be asking Sky if they are able to supply an Astra [satellite] transponder as it would certainly help us in our business plan.”He added that carriage by satellite would provide an opportunity for Channel 5 to get into more UK homes. The strategy is aimed at improving Channel 5’s coverage nation-wide, currently forecast at about 70 per cent of homes. Channel 5 Broadcasting, owner of Britain’s soon-to-be-launched fifth “free” television channel, is to seek close commercial ties with Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB in a move that could include cross-promotion, joint programme acquisition and even an agreement to distribute Channel 5 on satellite. He expected changes to be made to the whole system of financial regulation and any reforms at Lloyd’s would have to be studied in that context.Mr Nelson is to introduce new regulations in Parliament shortly which will clarify the regulatory position for names who wished to leave the market but have been unable to do so until Equitas starts operating.Lloyd’s is expected formally to pass its annual solvency test at the DTI in the next few days..

Yesterday the department approved a transfer of pounds 3.5bn.Mr Nelson said there would be a review of Lloyd’s regulation, but it would be deferred until after the election. The last time it was rung twice as a result of good news from the ocean was in 1981 when an overdue Liberian ship was found.And the last time it was rung once for a maritime disaster was when wreckage of the tanker Berge Vanga was found in the South Atlantic in 1979.As a result of the completion of the rescue, Equitas is to re-insure all Lloyd’s pre-1992 liabilities, which were pounds 14.7bn at the end of last year.Claims payments since then have reduced the total to about pounds 11.5bn.Mr Nelson said that since he conditionally authorised Equitas in March there had been an overall strengthening of its financial position.The process of transferring money to finance these liabilities can now proceed, including trust funds held in the US by the New York Insurance Department, which has also agreed the rescue and is to continue to be given Lloyd’s financial data to monitor. Once for sorrow and twice for joy was in the history of Lloyd’s. This is a very special occasion.”The most important thing for the market to remember is how close we came to not surviving, and the reasons for it,” he told a packed meeting of thousands of Lloyd’s professionals in the underwriting room in the insurance market’s headquarters in Lime Street, to loud applause.The bell has been rung more than twice on a previous occasion, though that was when it was rung four times in 1994 for the performance of a specially composed piece of music. But he declined to say whether the names who are members of the market would have to pay.Mr Rowland was speaking after presiding over a variation on the celebrated Lloyd’s ceremony of ringing the Lutine bell once for a disaster and twice for good news.The first of the three rings was a reminder of the pounds 8bn losses at Lloyd’s and the other two were to announce the good news of the rescue.Mr Rowland said: “I wanted to mark the difference. Three rings of the famous Lutine bell yesterday marked the arrival of the Lloyd’s insurance market in a safe port, after Anthony Nelson, the trade and industry minister, gave formal approval to the pounds 3.2bn rescue. But in a surprise late demand, Mr Nelson insisted that Lloyd’s give an assurance that it is prepared to find up to pounds 100m in the period to January 2002, to top up the pounds 1.68bn reserves of Equitas, the new reinsurance company at the heart of the rescue.
Mr Nelson said the pledge was required in case interest earnings on Equitas’s investments were lower than expected or there was a shortfall in contributions from agents or brokers.David Rowland, chairman of Lloyd’s, said: “Our regulators have driven hard bargains all the time.”He described the extra money as “one more piece of belt and braces that the DTI thinks necessary”.

In these countries the smaller retailer and corner shop are still strong. The superstore operators have yet to gain a stranglehold on food retailing On the whole, the City likes the deal and the strategy Unexciting it may be but you cannot fault the logic of it.. Booker has a stronger position in supplying the catering trade while N&P has been struggling along with its convenience store partners. While this is undoubtedly a case of managing decline and using the cash thrown off by a mature business to invest in other areas, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with such a strategy.Booker has already established cash-and-carry businesses in Portugal and Poland and would like to expand elsewhere in eastern Europe. Those plans can now be streamlined.Indeed, Booker’s and N&P’s combined sales will be north of pounds 4bn, which is comparable buying power to a very substantial multiple.