Bid worth £17m to Arcadia boss

ARCADIA boss Stuart Rose has an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time. He could walk away with more than £18m for 12 months' work if the group is taken over by Icelandic shareholder Baugur.

Having had several bumper pay-offs at previous jobs, the smooth-talking 52-year-old is described as the 'classic carpetbagger' by envious rivals. To be fair, his reputation as a shrewd retailer has helped. Arcadia's shares, languishing at 51p when he joined last November, more than doubled within two months of his arrival.

If Baugur, with 20.1%, pays 300p a share for the group, valuing it at £568m, Rose will make £16.1m from his share options. Arcadia, which takes in Dorothy Perkins, Evans and Miss Selfridge, gave him 6.47m options, priced at 51p, when he joined. These can be cashed in if the company is taken over.

Rose also received 500,000 shares as a 'golden hello', which would be worth £1.5m. His £500,000 annual salary looks like peanuts in comparison, although he would be likely to collect a sizeable performance-related bonus.

Before Arcadia, Rose saved cash-and-carry chain Booker from collapse, securing its merger with frozen food chain Iceland in May 2000. But he resigned after just five months, departing with £2.7m in options payments.

In 1998, he trousered £540,000 for just three months at Argos when he forced GUS to raise its hostile takeover bid. Before that, he left Burton (now part of Arcadia) with a £582,000 pay-off following a reshuffle ahead of its demerger from Debenhams.

If Arcadia is taken over, investors will wonder where Rose will go next. Some think Marks & Spencer has a chair with his name on it.