The deal announced yesterday, ostensibly a 50/50 merger with Gencor, in effect gives up control of Lonrho’s South African private platinum interests in exchange for a tradeable stake in a quoted company, Impala. If he carries on in his current vein, however, Tiny Rowland’s faithful band of shareholder followers, who were outraged by his ousting, are going to have a great deal to thank their unassuming new boss for – he is showing reassuring signs of doing something sensible with the sprawling empire he has inherited. For a man who has made serious amounts of money from the German property market, he is also surprisingly shy and retiring. Compared to his buccaneering predecessor at Lonrho, Dieter Bock comes across as earnest to the point of tedium. But it is questionable whether the present argy-bargy and muscle-flexing is going to provide a satisfactory solution..

Regulation is not widely held to be one of London’s strongest features, as international financial centres compete ever more furiously Mr Sharples is right to be worried about image. But they desert him brusquely at the point where he infers this can be improved by wrapping the powers of the SFA and Imro into a single, dominant entity, probably a super-SIB.As Mr Sharples admitted yesterday, the latest round of proposals for getting tough with the City is as much about positioning the SFA for a future regulatory shake-up as anything else. There is a distinct impression, hotly denied of course by the main protagonists, of a concerted campaign against the umbrella regulatory organisation, the Securities and Investments Board. Driving these ructions is, above all, fear of what a future Labour government might do. Alistair Darling, Labour’s City spokesman, has expressed strong reservations about the way in which regulatory responsibilties are currently organised, and dropped broad hints about a radical restructuring, concentrating powers for regulating the financial services sector in one, central body.
Mr Sharples, arm-in-arm with Phillip Thorpe, chief executive of Imro, the fund managers’ watchdog, are happy to accompany Mr Darling for the part of the journey that describes the current set-up as confusing. The days when regulators preferred to inhabit the shadows are long gone. Instead we have a public relations battle, as the City’s various regulatory bodies jostle with unseemly vigour for position.

The chairman of the Securities and Futures Authority, the main City watchdog, talks a good line Increasingly, he is doing so publicly and vigorously. Christopher Sharples is not someone for whom the label shy and retiring was invented. “The apparent advantage of greater choice would be accompanied by increased regulation, reduced liquidity and increased costs for price formation and discovery,” he said.Although down on the previous year’s record, new listings remained strong with 222 new companies joining the main market, raising pounds 7.2bn.. Without mentioning the rival fully automated exchange Tradepoint, which is about to begin operations in August, Mr Lawrence warned against fragmentation. Most members themselves earn well above that level, and are therefore more likely to feel sympathy for him than anything else,” a senior investment banker said.Mr Lawrence gave a vigorous defence in the annual report of the Stock Exchange’s position at the centre of the City’s trading life. Income was pounds 16m down to pounds 191m, while operating surplus dropped to pounds 14m from pounds 17m.