"I wonder if our industrialists are aware that 'this decade will tip the economy to the east' - you must have noticed the high profile purchase of Corus and Jaguar. I wonder if both of these have been driven by something other than purely business sense."

David Fuller's view Such as vanity, perhaps? My default point regarding most takeovers, not least in the incredibly competitive arena of manufacturing, is scepticism concerning their ability to increase shareholder value in the purchasing companies.