Net tightens around Marks

PHILIP Green's new conditional bid for Marks & Spencer is the most audacious ever launched by a private vehicle in British financial history.

Green has his critics in the business establishment and is often seen as a brash entrepreneur without the sophistication of old money.

But he rightly rejects such snobbery and must feel a real sense of achievement now that he has the complacent and wasteful Marks & Spencer board on the run.

His latest bid, potentially worth 400p a share, is right on the money and offers institutional investors - as well as the army of small shareholders - an honourable exit from a stock which consistently has failed to meet expectations in recent years.

The Bhs and Arcadia proprietor is being extraordinarily brave. He is committing up to £1.6bn of his own money to the bid (nearly half his personal fortune) and it is expected that Goldman Sachs will top up its £800m equity pledge. Investors who complained that they missed out on the upside at Bhs and Arcadia will have the chance to take the 'stub' shares in Revival which is likely to be quoted on the Aim market.

Green is not alone in pressing this offer. He has conditionally secured the support of the American value fund Brandes which has been sitting on the fence.

Back home, blue-blooded fund manager Schroders with 1.2% also is ready to take the money. It says something about the City's commitment to M&S that Schroder's modest stake is enough to put it among Marks's top investors.

Some will always be concerned about whether Green is the right person to run such a flagship enterprise. But many City analysts, who have been sceptical up until now, concede that he may finally have gained the upper hand in his tussle with M&S chief executive Stuart Rose. All the pressure will now be on Rose to come up with an eye- catching strategy on Monday if shareholders are to be convinced to stick with the incumbent management.

But however good the property revaluation, the ideas for cost reductions, supply improvements and focus, it is difficult to see the M&S share price moving close to 400p over the short term under Rose's stewardship.

The share price hovering around 370p does not yet see Green's bid as decisive, but without his series of offers it might be struggling to remain much above 330p a share.

Green still has many obstacles to overcome. The pension fund trustees will demand higher company contributions - if his Revival vehicle gains control - on the grounds that a leveraged company is less safe than one with a large equity base.

This is somewhat ironic in that if Green wins, the pension fund will be investing in bonds, precisely the kind of finance that the Monaco-based entrepreneur will be using to fund his offer.

Initial indications from the M&S boardroom were that this latest offer, like its predecessors, would be rejected. That clearly would be a mistake.

Rose and M&S are there to put up the best defence they can muster and to obtain the best price for shareholders while bearing in mind their responsibilities to employees, suppliers and customers.

This time round Green has offered enough to be granted a close look at M&S's books. Indeed, his duty of care to M&S and its 65,000 workforce demands this. No one would expect a recommendation ahead of next week's City presentation of strategy. But if that fails to impress, Britain's most iconic retailer could well fall under new ownership by the end of the summer.

Rose will once again be looking for a job. This time I recommend that he steers clear of share dealing before he decides what to do.

Symbian PSION investors may well be casting a rueful eye over events at Symbian, the London-based maker of software for clever phones.

Having baled out of the ownership consortium last year, Psion is a bystander as the major phone makers up their stakes and invest a further £50m new cash in Symbian in an effort to bring advanced cellular technology to mid-market phones.

There is still a long way to go before these mid-market phones - which offer smart services such as email, photography and video download - are widely available.

But a line-up which includes Sony, Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens and others suggests that there is confidence that the technology can be rapidly brought to market and that Symbian will be the dominant provider of operating systems.

At present Symbian receives £5 income for every smart phone sold.

When the mid-market handsets hit the streets, its income can be expected to whoosh and a flotation could follow soon afterwards. Psion loyalists may feel some pangs of jealousy.