ALEX BRUMMER: FTSE chiefs sound the retreat

Sometimes you have to wonder about the ambition and vision of Britain’s captains of industry. Admittedly G4S, the world’s biggest security outfit, has a chequered back story.

Shares, until the outbreak of bid fever, were horribly undervalued. Self-regarding chief executive Ashley Almanza and chairman John Connolly put up a great show of defending a firm mending its financial and cultural flaws.

But throughout the bidding war, kicked off by Canada’s Garda World with more friendly suitor Allied Universal lined up, there was never any real doubt that the battle was about price, not the future of one of Britain’s biggest private sector employers.

Plundered: There was never any real doubt that the battle for G4S was about price not the future of one of Britain’s biggest private sector employers

Almanza and Connolly kept the auction going, making sure they would eventually walk away with their bank balances more than £7million richer.

Indeed, it is possible that Garda World or another bidder might still enter the auction pushing the price even higher than the £3.8billion, or 245p per share, on the table.

There are questions which still require answers. Why is a company dominant in its field, not just in the UK but in Australia, Africa and across the world, happy to sit back and allow itself to be swallowed?

Similarly, how is it that the UK government is passive when, among other things, G4S is a critical part of the nation’s criminal justice system and responsible for the security at defence facilities, including the guarding the UK’s new HMS Queen Elizabeth carrier force? Aside from any other considerations, the UK currently is encircled by Russian subs!

The failure of Connolly and the board to stand up and fight for the company’s independence shows a terrible lack of ambition. 

Were it not for a short-term distortion to the UK’s share markets caused by Covid and the new relationship with the EU, even the enhanced premium offered by Allied would look paltry. 

G4S is no Unilever or Astrazeneca but were it not for brave directors who stood up to overseas plunderers, the UK’s two most valuable FTSE companies would have flown the nest.

The lack of inspiration in the UK’s boardrooms and among big battalion investors can only stymie Global Britain.

Tesco finally is going to receive an £8billion payment for the sale of its Asian retail empire after former chief executive Dave Lewis received an offer from Thailand’s CP Group which he couldn’t refuse.

Pulling out of the fastest growing region in the world and leaving it to the US’s Walmart to conquer is another case of myopia.

In contrast, Walmart is pulling back from Asda in Britain and going all guns blazing into China and the Pacific at a moment when the Bloomberg Asia Pacific retail index is flying as household incomes surge.

Tesco investors may celebrate a £5billion dividend. But when Covid is a memory and Ocado, Amazon Fresh and the German no-frills retailers have squeezed Tesco here the prospect of biting deep into the Pacific rim might have been more enterprising option.

Taking control

Amid worries in the City about the post-Brexit and Covid world, one of its pillars is standing tall. 

Under the quiet leadership of former Goldman Sachs banker David Schwimmer (no, not the comedy turn), the LSE is fast closing in on a leading role in the big data, financial information revolution with its £20billion deal to buy Refinitiv, the former Reuters data and trading desk arm.

The LSE has now won 16 merger control clearances globally and is releasing a prospectus as the deal represents a reverse takeover under the LSE’s own listing rules.

When the transaction was first mooted there was concern the LSE was overpaying. Recent high-value deals in the same space, such as S&P’s offer for IHS Markit, crushes that objection.

Let’s hear it for courage and foresight.

Risk aversion

As much as Glyndebourne, Wimbledon and the Ryder Cup are productions which can showcase Britain, the idea of the Government coming to the rescue by erecting a safety net for big insurers is ludicrous.

These are the very same behemoths who condemned many smaller firms to death when they refused to pay out on business interruption policies when Covid struck.

Instead of falling into line after the regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, took them to court and won, the insurers decided to appeal directly to the higher courts.

Bah humbug!

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk