Playing a dangerous game at M&B

DISENTANGLING the rights and wrongs of the row at pubs group Mitchells & Butlers is a difficult task, but what can be said with certainty is that the longer this dispute drags on, the more harmful it is to both sides. The Takeover Panel has ruled that some investors were not acting as a concert party before mid October, when they bought their last lot of shares, but in one sense that is beside the point. Even the perception that a public company may be treated as a rich men's plaything to the detriment of small shareholders and conventional institutional investors is damaging, not just to M&B but to the London market. The Association of British Insurers is right to say that the warring camps need to reach a deal as soon as possible. But it needs to be one that is fair to all shareholders: it must be a compromise, not a capitulation.