But a spokesman said: “It should be realised that any gains he enjoys have been well-reflected in gains for all Berisford shareholders.” Mr Bowkett tried to reshape the group as an industrial holding company.Last January Berisford paid a consortium of banks £56m for the Magnet kitchen and joinery business, one of the most spectacular management buyout failures of the decade. From 28 January hecan exercise rights to buy 1.55m shares at 64.4p which could net him a further £3.2m.Mr Bowkett is widely credited with having successfully redirected Berisford, a former commodities and property group, since coming on board in 1992. He also has until 28 January to exercise options to buy 1.49m shares at 98p – giving him a £2.5m paper profit at yesterday’s closing price. The Berisford shares were suspended at 228p on 19 December, one day before the company announced a £200.5m takeover bid for Welbilt, the US kitchen equipment maker.
The shares shot up 45p to 273p yesterday, as the market reacted favourably to the earnings enhancing potential of the US acquisition in its first year.The rise gave Mr Bowkett an immediate £675,000 profit on the 1.5m shares he holds in Berisford.

Retail prices for December will be published tomorrow.Hamish McRae, page 28. Alan Bowkett, chief executive of Berisford International, made a potential paper profit of £6.4m – £13,000 a minute – yesterday as shares soared after coming back from suspension. This was the highest trend rate since April 1991.The biggest increase came in basic metals, with prices up 8.2 per cent in the 12 months to December. Prices charged for chemicals rose 4.6 per cent in the year, and for rubber and plastics 4.2 per cent.These industries suffered the biggest increases in prices paid for inputs of materials and fuels.Metal producers faced input prices 20.9 per cent up on the year, while chemicals inputs increased 11.6 per cent in price.

Overall, input prices rose 8.3 per cent last year, and 0.4 per cent last month.Kevin Darlington, UK economist at Hoare Govett, said: “There is further evidence in the figures of the capacity pressures developing within manufacturing.”The reason increases in input and factory gate prices had not yet fed through to retail prices was competition in retailing, he said.Most City economists think the competitive squeeze on retailers’ profits margins is near its limit, in which case higher prices charged by manufacturers could start to be passed on to consumers.Even so, most thought yesterday’s figures were not alarming enough to require an early rise in interest rates.Michael Saunders, at Salomon Brothers, said: “Early March looks a likely time for the next rate move.”The next meeting between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England takes place on 2 February. He warned against exaggerating the weakness of consumer spending.
Factory gate prices jumped 0.7 per cent in December, taking them to a level 2.6 per cent higher than a year earlier.”Core” prices, excluding food, drink and tobacco, rose 0.3 per cent after adjustment for seasonal fluctuations.It was their biggest increase in a year, with their year-on-year rate of growth climbing to 2.8 per cent.More ominously, the trend in core output prices – measured by most economists as the rise in the latest three months over the previous three months – reached an annual rate of 4.5 per cent. Higher duties on tobacco and petrol announced in the Budget at the end of November led to a big increase in prices charged by manufacturers last month. Yet prices at the factory gate also rose after excluding the Budget effects, warning of higher retail price inflation in the pipeline. In a speech yesterday evening, Eddie George, Governor of the Bank of England, reminded his audience that the first rise in base rates in September was a response to “clear direct evidence of price pressures”.

They recommended that the Central Statistical Office should publish another monthly measure of inflation excluding indirect taxes alongside the retail price index.The decision to raise alcohol duties was also criticised, because of fears that it could damage the UK industry.The bigger-than-expected fall in inflation had allowed a cash cut in this year’s spending, but in real terms it had continued to grow, the MPs said.. and to set such a narrow target risks loss of credibility if the target fails to be met.”The target of having inflation below 2.5 per cent “may either force the introduction of a particularly tight monetary policy, dampening the recovery, or cause the Chancellor to break a stated aim which could undermine the credibility of the `new deal’ for monetary policy”. “There are extreme difficulties in predicting and meeting even broad targets for inflation two years hence. Malo de Marina, director general of the Bank of Spain, blamed the need for high interest rates on the strength of worldoutput growth and competition for funds from eastern Europe.The lira and peseta both rallied against the mark..

Kenneth Clarke, the Chancellor, may have set too tight a target for future inflation risking “loss of credibility” if it is not met, the cross-party Treasury and Civil Service Committee warned yesterday. In an assessment of the Budget, the committee said the Government had failed to meet its own objective in cutting expenditure in the current year, that the much vaunted private finance initiative had proved disappointing and that it was not convinced by the Chancellor’s forecast of a big jump in business investment.
The review of the Budget concluded that Mr Clarke’s broadly neutral fiscal stance was the appropriate one and that publication of the minutes of his monthly meetings with the Governor of the Bank of England had significantly enhanced the credibility of monetary policy.There were, however, “some areas of concern” about that “new deal” the committee said, not least the specific target of holding inflation to the lower half of the 1 per cent to 4 per cent range by the end of the parliament “There is a danger with this,”the committee said. Shares on the Singapore and Malaysian market rose, although the Korean market registered falls.Shares in Milan continued the strong recovery and both the main indices rose 4-5 per cent Shares in Madrid rose more than 1 per cent. The Spanish Finance Minister, Pedro Solbes, said the peseta crisis was over and the French Finance Minister, Edmond Alphandery, said the European monetary system had shown its robustness.
The Hong Kong market rebounded sharply from Friday’s falls and the Hang Seng index rose 251.9 to 7,504.24, a rise of 3.5 per cent, although turnover was modest and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority was again supporting the currency for the third trading day in a row. The storm that has been shaking emerging markets and threatened the dollar seemed to have subsided yesterday, helped by President Clinton’s determination to support the Mexican government’s efforts to restore confidence in the economy, and by the appointment of a new prime minister in Italy. Other markets from East Asia to Latin America and southern Europe shared the mood of confidence.