Stick to your own script
Both parties are squaring up to each other and the future is clouded by insecurity. One side wants to see a change of regime; the other is being guarded and defensive. A battle is in the making and, however it turns out, there are certain to be casualties.
Iraq and the United Nations? Israel and Palestine? No, we're talking about Six Continents and Hugh Osmond's takeover bid.
Not since the merger and eventual demerger of Compass and Granada (or was it Granada and Compass?) has a corporate hotel/hospitality story dominated the financial pages of the national press like this one. It's a fascinating soap opera that, for most of us, flickers in the background like an extended edition of EastEnders; it is the Star Wars to our Gregory's Girl.
But there is a parental warning flashing in the corner of our screens.
Six Continents (née Bass) wanted to break down its hospitality business into two divisions - hotels and pubs, bars and restaurants - believing that this would provide the dividend that shareholders were calling for.
Sensing a weakness, Osmond started sniffing around the company, making polite takeover approaches at first and then, after being rebuffed, turning hostile.
The Six Continents position has been brought about by a flat economy and, Osmond would say, a management style that has proved inadequate to the task. Whatever happens in the current ownership battle, there is no doubt that Six Continents will be restructured, with all the attendant cutbacks and job losses that this entails.
The danger for us spectators is that, when the big boys start to play rough-and-tumble in this way, the whole playground follows suit. Investors in smaller companies begin to look for similar moves to maintain dividends and, suddenly, the whole sector starts cutting back in a wave of domino-style panic measures that really aren't necessary for everyone at this stage of the economic cycle.
So, beware! The plotlines of the soaps may seem remote but they can have more impact than you'd think. It's important to keep business decisions autonomous and not allow inappropriate trends to be followed.
Forbes Mutch, Editor, Caterer & Hotelkeeper
