Pipe down, box-tickers! Sir Stuart's got M&S looking rosy

Not the corporate governance crowd, it seems, who are still banging on about his being the executive chairman of Britain's biggest clothes retailer - an all-powerful role that never fails to get their Marks & Spencer knickers into an almighty twist.

Never mind that this issue is a year old, some of the box-tickers have been making a fuss behind the scenes and intend to call for his job to be split in two at the annual meeting tomorrow.

This story wasn't going anywhere a year ago when serious shareholders such as Schroders and Legal & General were openly voicing concern about Rose's new position, so it's unlikely to matter much now that it's the likes of Pirc and RiskMetrics (who?) that can't get past it.

For most M&S investors, whether Sir Stuart is a mere chief executive who can be fired at whim by the board or a chairman who'll go when he sees fit is secondary to the main concern: they'd like the shares to start moving upwards, please.

They'd also like him to name a successor - he's getting around to it, but keeping the dates intentionally vague to allow himself as much wiggle room as possible.

It seems fair to assume that finance director Ian Dyson is the front-runner, with clothing boss Kate Bostock also in with a shout.

One of them will be anointed early next year, allowing Sir Stuart to step aside, probably next summer.

In the meantime, what should investors do? Not much more than put a sock in it. If there was a time to force Rose out, to argue that his Marks & Spencer revolution had been a failure and that a bold outside choice was needed, it's been and gone.

Now that he is going to go anyway, shareholders might as well give him the chance to prove that he has genuinely transformed a business which had horribly lost its way when he arrived in 2004.

The first-quarter sales figures M&S will also unveil tomorrow should allow him to make the case that the company is on the mend.

Sales will be down by somewhere between 2% and 3% on a year ago, but that's an improving trend.

The food figures, down by perhaps more than 4%, will look poor compared with rivals such as Sainsbury's, which have seen strong growth, but's that's not a straight comparison.

For the large supermarkets, sales growth includes portions of inflation but this doesn't apply at M&S, where prices had to be cut to get competitive - once these figures wash through and are converted into actual profits, they will look much better.

For now, Rose will face the usual collection of OAPs who want to know, with typical charm, why they can't get the hosiery they used to buy in 1950.

The small investors for whom the M&S annual meeting is a fine day out might not love Rose as much as they used to, but they will miss his style when he is gone.

For now, he's got a company to run. The corporate governance experts have little useful to add.

Shock as broker takes issue with bank's exorbitant charges for doing nothing

Finally! A public show of irritation at what investment banks are charging to support fundraising exercises.

Marston's plan to raise £176million from investors to fund the building of out-of-town pubs wasn't greeted with cheers all round in the first place.

Now an analyst has dared to state the obvious: bookrunners Rothschild, Cazenove and RBS Hoare Govett are seriously trying it on by claiming fees of £10 million.

A note from Altium Securities offers: "We have no issue with what Marston's intends to do with the funds raised, just the cost of raising them."

Chief executives and investors have begun to murmur about costs, noting that the bankers are claiming fees of up to 6% of the amount raised.

In the old days, 2% was the norm.But by citing supposedly higher levels of risk, the investment banks have been ratcheting up fees all year, gobbling up about £1.5billion of the £40 billion they have raised - without much apparent effort.

Chief executives started moaning in private about these fees just recently, though none has yet done the bold thing - fired the overcharging banks and taken their business elsewhere.

If a rights issue gets derailed because investors decide the fees are onerous and refuse to cough up, it would only serve the bankers right.

As for Marston's, best-known for brewing Pedigree, it appears to have other problems.

Investors are none too happy about seeing their stakes diluted for a rights issues that is far from vital.

Chief executive Ralph Findlay wants to build scores of new pubs in retail parks and just off major roundabouts.

They sound like the kind of places you enter with great reluctance to break up a long journey, and leave full of irritation at what you've just spent.

There's lots of reasons to hope investors shun this offer, leaving the banks holding stock they don't want and Findlay wondering if he shouldn't build five good pubs instead of 60 dreadful ones.

Power behind the drone

Which swinging dick investment banker is so terrified of his wife that colleagues regard her as the more powerful influence on City takeover activity?

The man in question is at the heart of many recent deals, indeed his paw-prints are close to ubiquitous.

Chief executives find his advice quirky but occasionally inspired.

One says of his scatter-gun approach: "He speaks non-stop for about 45 minutes, of which precisely one minute's worth will be brilliant."

Loyal for years to the same blue-blooded firm, the banker is never short of ideas, nor shy to claim credit whether he's involved or not.

"It wasn't his deal this morning, but it will be by the end of the day," goes the running internal gag.

"Unless his wife phones up and sends him home."