After all, US institutions are not renowned for appreciating or supporting UK pubs. Indeed several of the pub buy-out schemes, put into place after the Government’s ill-fated Beer Orders forced the big brewers to sell many of their pubs, were abandoned when promised US support was withdrawn once top management got involved.Yet Wetherspoon, selling at more than 32 times last year’s earnings, is pulling in the American punters. But he is determined not to move the collection just along the road to 71 Lombard Street, Lloyds Bank’s head office – because of the ghastly yellow lino- like floor covering which predominates on the fourth floor, where the top executives hang out.There’s no way of getting rid of the yellow stuff either.It’s got a preservation order on it; something about “art deco.”Greg Dyke, chief executive of Pearson Television, was at a dinner party given by Barry Cox, president of the ITV Association, a number of years ago. Sir Nicholas fully accepts that the pictures and sculpture from more than 40 young British artists must move from the TSB’s old head office at 60 Lombard Street, which will close once the merger is completed. It’s a feather in our cap.”Since Mr Hyde will be swapping the central location of Kleinwort’s Fenchurch Street offices for BZW’s new ones miles away in Canary Wharf, Mr Hyde must have been paid an even heftier transfer fee than usual.Sir Nicholas Goodison, the former chairman of TSB and now deputy chairman of the Lloyds TSB Group, is not happy about the future of the modern art collection built up by the TSB before it was gobbled up by the black horse. If you’re a fan and have nothing better to do with your life, here’s the address: http:// www.sky.co.uk/sports/manu
Peter Hyde, the head of UK research at Kleinwort Benson, has been poached by BZW to head its transport team.

Mr Hyde was the top-ranked analyst in the Extel survey in 1993 over all sectors, and also won accolades as an analyst in the water sector from 1989 to1995 BZW trilled yesterday: “We’re delighted. Apparently the site itself is vast, with loads of detail about players, plans for the club and so on. It also has a “Chat Forum” for fans to communicate through, which has clocked up more than 7,000 messages. One company, Internet Direct, is so impressed that United has been nominated for its “Yell Awards” for “Best site on the Internet.” Talk about planting the ball in the back of the net. Announcing half-year results yeserday United said that since launching its own site on the World Wide Web last December (ask an anorak what this bit means) it has had more than a million visits. Manchester United has the 17th most popular web site on the whole of the Internet.

Success on the pitch and in the City has now been followed by success in cyberspace. Pre-tax profits in the year to December were 3.4 per cent higher at pounds 72.6m. Sales were flat at pounds 1.4bn.With pounds 34m net cash, a share buy back is possible but this is unlikely to excite the market. Analysts have trimmed their profit forecasts for the current year to around pounds 76m.With sluggish earnings growth prospects and price competition in the supermarket sector set to put more pressure on margins, the shares have few attractions.. If the share price does drift up from its current 155p to around 170p they are likely to be hit by heavy selling.All this is hard on the management, which is doing all the right things but running to stand still.The dismal 3.5 per cent fall in like- for-like sales in the first nine weeks of the second half has been reversed and comparative sales have risen by 2 per cent in the 17 weeks since January. Margins have also improved.Iceland is also reining back its store opening programme and will now open 40 new stores during the year.

This compares with a recent annual average of 50.Last year’s results were decent in a difficult market. The shares trade on a heavily discounted price/earnings ratio of 10 but there is still no interest. It is becoming increasingly clear that Iceland, the frozen food retailer, is in need of a new direction. Its role as a “top up” shop in the cut-throat supermarket sector just isn’t providing the returns. Hence last year’s failed bid to buy the Littlewoods stores, which indicated a lack of confidence in the existing business.
Chief executive Malcolm Walker confirmed those suspicions yesterday when he hinted that although no acquisitions are on the horizon he would still like to do a deal.The problem is that the market doesn’t believe there is any real upside here. Similar targets are being sought among European conglomerates but the market waited for Esab and Mr Herbert is not about to be rushed.In the meantime, profits of pounds 108m this year would put the shares, up 14p to 893p, on a forward p/e of 12 Undervalued.. Further cost cutting, shifting more production to low cost areas and a push into the Far East will help, but the test will be the next recession, admittedly some way off.A bigger hurdle for Mr Herbert will be to repeat Esab.

With gearing cut to an impressive 17 per cent from 91 per cent in 1994, he is ready to spend anywhere between pounds 100m and pounds 500m. Last year, economic growth meant volumes rose between 8 and 15 per cent in Esab’s businesses, pushing margins through the 10 per cent target. The harder task will be to hold that level through the cycle, as hoped. Rigorous management has helped lift like-for-like profits at Esab by 22 per cent and underlying margins have grown 2 percentage points, when the windfall benefits from a bonanza in Brazilian sales of welding rods at the end of 1994 are stripped out.Meanwhile, Charter’s remaining businesses, mainly the separately-quoted Cape building insulation group and Pandrol railtrack fastenings, have not been neglected. Cape has done well to shrug off the UK’s building malaise to raise profits 29 per cent, while a $5m (pounds 3.3m) turnaround into the black at the US track maintenance operation helped push up returns from the rail equipment division by 56 per cent.But the big question for Mr Herbert and his team is how to maintain the momentum. Group pre- tax profits soared to pounds 97.5m in the latest 12 months from pounds 54.8m in the previous nine.
Mr Herbert and his team have done everything they said they would. The effect on Charter’s results for the 12 months to December was magnified by Esab’s partial contribution in 1994, when there was also a change of year end, but the Swedish group clearly had a large impact.