If his sector charges won’t consolidate of their own accord Mr Webb could force the pace

If his sector charges won’t consolidate of their own accord, Mr Webb could force the pace. Or, as he puts it more cryptically: “If the turkeys aren’t going to vote for Christmas, I’m going to have to put them in the oven.”Intellexis a ‘buy’Intellexis, a professional training and e-learning business, has been an almost wholly disastrous investment since it joined the market in 2000 but its house broker, Teather & Greenwood, has finally mustered the courage to rate the stock as a “buy”. Both look like they could be targets.Mr Webb’s other major holdings in the sector include Robert Walters and Quantica, the latter being a likely acquiror, in his view. Quantica has a broad range of staffing businesses, spanning IT, healthcare, the law and construction, but its bidding ambitions could be constrained by a modest share-price rating. It is several brokers’ pick of a sector that could benefit from improving UK business confidence.Mr Webb could use his positions to stimulate champion-building mergers among the smaller players, and he is unafraid to act. Unicorn has been able to build holdings of 27 per cent in MSB International – an ambitious company held back by cash flow problems – and of 25 per cent in Lorien – a specialist in IT staff.

Interims – Premier Farnell; InterContinental Hotels.FRIDAY: Results: Full year – Plasmon Interims – None.. The recruitment sector is set for a burst of merger and acquisition activity – and Peter Webb, the small-cap fund manager with the big public profile, is just the man to kick-start the process. Williams de Broe forecasts a pre-tax profit of £565m, up from £555m previously.Results: Full year – Big Food Group; Boots; BTG; Chloride; Pennon; Pillar Property. At the time, a reluctance by the retailer’s management to say when this investment might begin to pay-off left investors feeling nervous.Analysts are hoping that Boots’ annual results will see the group given some indication of when these benefits might start to become evident Earnings are tipped to remain largely static on the year. Interims – Paragon GroupTHURSDAY: In March Boots said it planned to invest heavily in its chemist chain and warned that group profits would suffer as a result. Earlier this month, Philip Yea, the only external candidate on the shortlist to replace John Ritblat as chief executive, decided to take the helm at 3i instead. This means the group is likely to miss the July 2004 deadline to appoint a new chief executive.Results: Full year – Vodafone; British Land; Emap; GUS; GWR; Icap; Marks & Spencer; Scottish Power.

Interims – Acambis; RM.WEDNESDAY: Results: Full year – Vodafone; Bristol & West; De La Rue; Electrocomponents; Great Portland; Homeserve; Pilkington; Protherics; Scapa; Shanks; Sondex. Meanwhile, things are beginning to get tough for the group in Italy and Germany as the markets have become increasingly competitive.The stock broker Gerrard forecasts full-year pre-tax profits at British Land to rise from £146m to £151m but warns that worries about corporate governance at the property giant are set to continue. In fact, traders moved into the mobile phone giant on Friday in the belief that the figures will beat expectations. Williams de Broe forecasts pre-tax profits at Vodafone to soar to £10.4bn from £8.4bn but argues that the headline figures are increasingly of secondary importance to the company as it moves into a new epoch in its development. “We do not believe that the results will be disappointing, but neither will they be a pointer to a significantly bright future,” the broker said, Of particular concern is the poor performance of Vodafone’s Japanese unit, where both 2G and 3G subscriber numbers have been woeful.