The recovery in wholesale electricity prices since then has transformed its fortunes, but too late to help shareholders.The BE chairman, who insists on styling himself as Adrian Montague CBE, has won no friends with his patrician approach and the crocodile tears he has shed for the company’s 230,000 small shareholders. But it is futile to argue, as Polygon does, that shareholders have a right to a bigger share of the cake. Assuming the deal goes through, BE will have a stock market value of about £1bn when the shares re-list That is 10-times what the shares are worth today. Directors are hemmed in by the Government on one side and bondholders on the other. To have acceded to the demands of the rebel shareholders, led by Polygon Investments, and torn up the debt-for-equity swap signed with creditors, would have been to invite the bondholders to force the company into insolvency.In that case, shareholders in the business would have been wiped out entirely.

As things stand, they will get just 2.5 per cent of the company and the right to subscribe to warrants giving them a further 5 per cent But at least that is better than nothing at all. British Energy British Energy has finally pushed the nuclear button and announced it is delisting its shares. It is a brutal method of denying shareholders their fundamental right which, as owners of a company, is to decide what to do with it. In a share-owning democracy, it is the kind of extreme measure which should ordinarily be avoided at all costs.But debt also carries its obligations and, in the case of British Energy, it is hard to see what else the board could have done.

The economy is growing, the rand is strengthening, inflation and the budget are under control, and not with standing the country’s still deep rooted problems, there is a growing interest in the region from international capital. Barclays’ return would be powerfully symbolic of South Africa’s economic and cultural renaissance. I’m one of those who was pessimistic about prospects for the South African economy in the transition from apartheid to democracy, but I’m pleased to say that I’ve been proved wrong. Barclays may also face competition, in particular from Standard Chartered Bank. It’s early days in the talks, and it is more than possible that Barclays will eventually pull out.Yet it is testament to how much things have changed in South Africa that it is even trying. Shareholders – the largest is the insurer Sanlam with 21 per cent – would require a big premium to the already quite demanding price.