The sale is expected to be completed tomorrow

The sale is expected to be completed tomorrow.The deal gives Fyffes control of almost 50 per cent of the UK banana supply market. However, competition authorities have allowed the deals as Fyffes will control less than 20 per cent of the European market.Fyffes is expected to make some disposals including the possible sale of Geest’s Costa Rican banana farm and two large ships.However, analysts said the deal would make little difference to the UK’s supply of bananas. Other positive factors include a low tax charge because of the pounds 1bn a year investment plans and an imminent decision by the regulator to allow Railtrack to keep 70 per cent of property development profits, which will be significant even if estimates of a pounds 2bn windfall are silly.On its own merits, this is a relatively safe utility with a regulatory regime that may prove more stable than those in electricity, telecommunications and gas. The exact amount depends on how far Railtrack is expected to finance improving the West Coast main line and other projects. From an investment point of view, Railtrack is a utility with a property kicker – in other words as safe a bet as you could hope for. This is a company whose revenues are largely protected by contracts with the train operating companies; many of the financial uncertainties surrounding Railtrack are beginning to fall away.The government is certain to write-off some of the debt, perhaps from pounds 1.7bn to pounds 1bn, if not to the pounds 500m Railtrack wants.

To which the response must be “produce them, or we won’t believe you”, for at this stage it is hard to see what those aces could be. Or is he just bluffing? As with previous privatisations, Labour’s effect looks like being merely to reduce the value of the sell-off, making it even more of a bonanza for investors, rather than halt it altogether.Discounting Labour’s sniping from the sidelines, the flotation of Railtrack is beginning to look a relatively straightforward exercise. Unfortunately it was as unforthcoming as ever on the crucial question on how to reconcile its determination to have a publicly owned rail network with the fact that it has also ruled out renationalisation “Aces up sleeve”, mutters John Prescott. Verdict: storm clouds – but no rain.Is Labour bluffing over Railtrack?Labour yesterday officially launched its campaign to halt privatisation of Railtrack, scheduled to take place in May. Indeed when many Germans look in the mirror of their system of corporate government they’re not so keen on what they see, either. Small wonder when they contemplate the disastrous diversification strategy of bellwether Daimler-Benz which the present management is now seeking to rectify. Instead, they insist on unrealistically high hurdle rates for new capital spending that have contributed to the investment famine in this recovery.While there is something in all this, it is far from clear that the alternative system – for which Labour generally looks longingly towards Germany rather than the Far East – is so superior.

As Sir Geoffrey Owen of the LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance pointed out last week, the German system kept a company like AEG on the life support system long after it should have been put out of its misery.The City certainly keeps industry on its toes – but maybe industry needs to be. Mmmm
What this appears to mean is that New Labour is no more enamoured of the City’s rumbustious market in corporate control than Old Labour. The general accusation – though not one made in Mr Blair’s speech – is that companies are forced to superserve shareholders, by now so bloated on their fat dividends they cannot see beyond the next quarter, let alone their toes. Fear of corporate predators stops managers from pursuing long- term investment strategies. In a heavily overcast passage – we’re talking cumulo-nimbus here – Mr Blair says it’s time for a change in emphasis in corporate ethos from companies as “a mere vehicle for the capital markets” towards a vision of them as a community or partnership “in which each employee has a stake”. The exception was Linklaters & Paines, which still came third, with 19 transactions worth pounds 20bn..

As Nick Leeson languishes in a Singapore jail for his ill-fated escapade in Anglo-Saxon capitalism, red in tooth and claw, Tony Blair drops in to Singapore to sing the praises of the much nicer sounding “stakeholder economy”. Insofar as this cloudy concept means anything at all, it endorses the general idea of long-term partnership as opposed to the short-term promiscuous goings-on that are said to characterise the UK’s freewheeling market economy. In contrast, McKenna & Co, a top 10 firm in previous years, failed to make the top 20.Five of the top six positions in the combined table went to firms involved in Glaxo’s pounds 9.1bn takeover of Wellcome. Norton Rose achieved a wide spread of business, while Theodore Goddard benefited from joining Freshfields on the TSB deal with Lloyds Bank.Allen & Overy also moved up, from 17th to eighth, with 17 deals worth pounds 7.8bn. In this category, Freshfields moved up from seventh to second place, with 20 deals worth pounds 19.6bn.Other climbers included Norton Rose and Theodore Goddard, which rose from 11th and 20th places respectively to come seventh and ninth.

However, Slaughter and May, which had headed the overall listing for two years, remained top of the table of advisers to companies with 22 deals worth pounds 23.6bn. It is estimated that law firms earned about pounds 200m of the approximately pounds 950m in City fees generated by takeovers during the year.The firm’s success in the overall table for lawyers to financial advisers or companies, results from its involvement in the year’s five largest deals, including a joint role for TSB in its pounds 6.1bn acquisition by Lloyds Bank and as sole adviser to Southern Electric, which beat off National Power’s pounds 2.8bn bid. BY ROGER TRAPP

Freshfields has ousted Slaughter and May from the highly sought-after top position in the annual league table of lawyers working on UK public takeovers. It acted on 31 deals worth a total of pounds 32.2bn, compared with its rival’s 30 transactions totalling pounds 29.7bn, according to the 1995 listing by Acquisitions Monthly magazine.
This was a boom year for mergers and acquisitions, with Freshfields’ winning total nearly eight times that of Slaughter and May’s 1994 performance. However no discussions are thought to be taken place at the moment.City analysts are divided on a likely bid price. BZW suggests a possible take-out price of 250p per share, compared to yesterday’s closing price of 210p.One view is that after stripping out bid speculation, the true trading level of the shares is around 170-175p with a bid price little higher than the current level..