Tonight:
5°c
One of my favourite City lunch companions is a true gentleman, but by his second glass of white burgundy he has barely a civil word to say about Clara Furse. She's destroyed half the City, she's marched the London Stock Exchange up to the top of the hill and down again and she doesn't listen to the very stockbrokers she's meant to work for, he decries.
He's not alone by any means. Furse is a bit like Marmite - you either love her or hate her.
I like Marmite and I like Furse. She has never been, for me, the Ice Maiden that some have called her. She has a twinkle in her blue eyes and a sense of humour as dry as a Martini cocktail.
But let's not be taken in by personality alone. Let's examine Furse's record since she took over from Gavin Casey in January 2001, after he had ignominiously failed in his plan to merge with Deutsche Börse.
Furse has since battled and seen off five takeover bids for the LSE.
Her critics point out she refused a top-of-the-market 1243p-a-share offer from Nasdaq in November 2006. She responds that the share price subsequently rose to more than 2000p.
It is now back at around 700p, compared to 300p when she joined. Shares go up as well as down!
Over the same eight years, the LSE's dividend has risen almost sevenfold and still looks to be fully funded by earnings.
Furse inherited the remnants of an institution that had resembled a gentlemen's club. It was barely a decade previously that one of her predecessors, Sir Nicholas Goodison, could collect enough cigar ash after a single board meeting to ensure that his collection of barometers retained the extra fine polished finish that he required.
Today, the LSE is a body "fit for purpose" - best exemplified, probably, by the stratospheric cut in the time it now takes to trade. Fascinatingly - unlike many organisations in the City - it actually employs more staff now than it did eight years ago.
Another thing Furse deserves credit for is working on behalf of all stakeholders. Generally speaking, I hate that phrase as being yet another part of corporate governance masturbation. But in the LSE's case, it does have responsibilities to more than just its shareholders and employees.
It has an obvious role serving its former members in the broking firms and investment banks that used to own it and are its major customers. Even when they have set up rival markets, Furse has treated them firmly and still appears to win on commercial grounds alone.
The Exchange also has a clear duty to those companies which are listed on it. Never has that been truer than now, when its role as a market on which to raise secondary capital is proving so vital - not just to those companies but also to the wider economy.
Finally, Furse has played no small part in keeping London as one of the prime centres of the capitalist world.
An independent Stock Exchange is more than a symbol. It attracts and keeps here the asset-management and corporate-finance skills and fund base that put the UK streets ahead of its European rivals.
Furse was made a dame a year ago - and incidentally her pay packet has doubled in the last six years. But I'll still say bonne chance, Clara, and bonjour, Xavier.
At Chelsea, signs of real green shoots
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show was everything I expected. It rained, I had to buy my own Pimm's, and most of the gardens were distinctly less ostentatious than in recent years.
As previously advertised, I went courtesy of the show's sponsor, Marshalls. Its permeable block paving, lining an urban street of four front gardens, attracted many thousands of punters.
The majority of the other gardens gently or even wittily made a point about the credit crunch and ensuing recession. Designs and planting were practicable and affordable. The kind of stuff that could happen even in my patch of green in North-West London. There were queues for all the stands selling seeds or taking plant orders.
Economic cycles come and go. Gardeners know that the seasons are far more important.
Here's a generous offer Barclays can and should refuse like I'm doing with theirs
Dear John Varley
I understand you may be looking to raise some more cash soon. It's not that you're cash-strapped, just that all you banks could do with some beefing-up of your balance sheets.
Now I'm quite happy to lend you some money. Indeed, I could sit down and write you a cheque today.
Not unreasonably, I'd like you to pay me interest on my loan. I suggest the going rate of 21.9%.
Yes, I admit that's 2066 basis points over Libor - the rate you banks charge to lend to each other.
It's more than half again the 14% you are paying the Abu Dhabi and Qatari wealth funds who so helpfuly bailed you out last year, on their most expensive bits of paper. It's even more than the 17.9% you charge your customers on their unauthorised overdrafts. But, Mr V, it is what you would be happy to charge me. Your nice Amanda Muir, calling herself Barclayloan Manager, has just written to me along these lines, telling me "there's a Barclayloan with your name on it for £2900". She even included something that looks suspiciously like a cheque for just that amount, drawn on your Moorgate branch.
She then goes on to point out I would be charged 21.9% APR if I take up this offer, which means that, in 36 months' time, you would have collected almost £4000 from me for a loan of just under £3000.
Fortunately, a glance at my current account (with another bank) tells me I don't need your money. So I guess you won't be taking up my offer, either
Yours most sincerely,
Nick
