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Article: Business buccaneers make a comeback.
- Article from:
- Financial News
- Article date:
- February 23, 2003
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Financial News Publishing Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Margareta Pagano, Associate Editor
There is something in the air reminiscent of the early 1980s ahead of the great takeover boom. It is the smell of cordite burning as a new generation of swashbuckling buccaneers fire their pistols at companies they see as vulnerable targets.This time the players are sassy financial engineers such as Robin Saunders of WestLB with her bid for AWG, opportunists like Philip Green of BhS or Tom Hunter with his raids on the House of Fraser.
Slightly more sophisticated is the pizza-to-Punch prince, Hugh Osmond, who is now pitching for Six Continents, while Tony Pidley's bizarre one-day bid for his father's Berkeley ...