The deal makers

ARCADIA'S chief executive Stuart Rose is the ultimate contrast to the man buying his company. Known as retail's 'Mr Manners' he is suave, unflappable, and polished, but he objects to being described as a 'smoothie'.

Despite the fact they have been on opposite sides of the negotiating table, he and Green remain close friends and he was a guest at Green's famous Cyprus toga party to mark his 50th birthday.

Rose 53, was a management trainee at Marks & Spencer and later became commercial director of the European division. He moved to Burton in 1989 and became chief executive of Arcadia two years ago when he secured his extraordinary options package. He has homes in central London and Suffolk, where he has a cellar with 'thousands' of bottles of fine wine. In his spare time he flies his private plane.

PHILIP GREEN has already made himself a billionaire through his £200m takeover of Bhs two years ago. He transformed it from the ugly ducking of the High Street to a £1bn swan. Last year Bhs made enough profit to pay him a £157m dividend.

He is admired in the City as a retailer of rare talent and nerve. However, after he was forced to resign from the discount retailer Amber Day following a profit warning early in his career, he loathes the City establishment.

The Arcadia deal gives Green, 50, a position of power in British clothes retailing to rival the mighty Marks & Spencer. The comparison will please him as an abortive bid for Marks in 2000 was a rare setback for the man who started off with a £21,000 loan in 1974.