In the light of the foregoing, the board requested the resignation of Dr Horrobin.”Scotia claims the board remained unanimously behind Dr Dow and his future plans for the group.Dr Horrobin’s departure from the group throws the future of his and his family’s 17 per cent stake in Scotia, which is worth almost pounds 51m, into doubt. He has undertaken not to sell a large part of his holding until next year, but could sell 4 million shares immediately.His departure also comes at an awkward time for Sherri Clarkson, Dr Horrobin’s wife. She has already decided to step down as managing director of Scotia’s drug discovery division, a position that drew criticism from some analysts who cast doubts about her qualifications for the job. He is also trying to get Hollywood to deal with the problem of runaway costs. Leaders of the eight unions representing university staff said job insecurity was creating stress and damaging vital research and teaching work.In some cases research staff had been through as many as three contracts a year. “Patients are at minimum risk to themselves and no risk to the staff or the wider public.”A spokesman for the UK Central Council said: “Any nurses practising without effective registration are by definition not subject to the council’s standards.”There is an onus on the individual to make sure they are up to date with their registration but there is also an onus on the employers as well to ensure there is a system in place to ensure that staff are up to date.”Ashworth – whose most notorious patient is Ian Brady, the Moors Murderer – has been under scrutiny since January 1997 when the then Secretary of State for Health, Stephen Dorrell, ordered an independent inquiry into the hospital over allegations involving pornography, drugs and paedophilia – particularly why a girl of eight was allegedly allowed to play with a sex offender.The inquiry was told yesterday that Ashworth did not have a policy governing child visitors. This year, Universal ranks sixth among film distributors with just a 6.3 per cent share of the US and Canadian box office.After the failure of Primary Colors, four executives resigned, increasing the sense of turmoil in Universal City.Mr Bronfman has engineered the sale of most of the company’s television businesses, including the USA Network and Sci-Fi cable channels, to Barry Diller’s Home Shopping Network.

Today, that investment would be worth $19.1bn because DuPont’s shares have more than doubled. Seagram’s stock, meanwhile, is up just 50 per cent.Outside Steven Spielberg’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park last summer, Universal has not released any blockbusters under Mr Bronfman. And the company’s main spirits and Tropicana juice business is under pressure in Asia, one of its main markets.”I’d give him an `F’ for being attuned to shareholder value,” said one Seagram investor.Shareholders are worried about Seagram’s foundering share price and a host of unfulfilled promises from the company’s high-profile film studio acquired for $5.7bn in 1995.To finance the acquisition, 42-year-old Mr Bronfman sold Seagram’s 23 per cent stake in DuPont, the US chemical company, for $8.7bn. He complained at an industry conference in New York in March that some people still believe he bought Universal three years only so he could pursue his side career as a songwriter. His credits include the theme song for last year’s Sylvester Stallone film Daylight.But it is clear that Seagram has been having a tough time.Two films that Universal was banking on, Primary Colors and Mercury Rising, bombed, leading to the departure of several top executives.

HOLDING talks with two music industry majors in the space of a fortnight is testimony to the determination of Edgar Bronfman, Seagram’s CEO, to catapult his business into the music business elite. But on Wall Street Mr Bronfman is criticised for considering the purchase of a record company at all. Many analysts there believe Seagram has enough problems without expanding its MCA-Universal business at a time when the decline of super-groups and the rise of digital recording are undermining its profits.
Mr Bronfman, though, feels people simply don’t understand him. It’s a bit harder to see how it works for one of the big paint companies,” said Peter Cartwright at Williams de Broe.. He put a possible take-out price of 600p per share on the company.Akzo said it has “sufficient financing available” should the need arise to re-think its position.Analysts believe any interloper would have trouble dislodging Akzo unless it had a very well defined plan for the Courtaulds fibres business.Akzo wants to spin off the operation along with its own fibres business “You can see how it works for Akzo. However, it is understood that ICI management is cool on the idea of entering the fray at current prices. PPG has also been expanding and last year bought some Italian and German automotive coatings businesses.

Analysts said other bidders could include ICI, which has been completing a radical overhaul of its chemicals operations. Courtaulds shares rose 25p to 464p valuing Courtaulds at pounds 1.9bn.Martin Evans at Sutherlands, the stockbrokers, repeated his statement that Courtaulds was “seriously under-valued” at 450p per share given its rarity value and its prime market positions in sectors such as the marine, aerospace and protective coatings industries as well as its polymers business “You won’t be able to build market positions like these You would need to buy them,” he said. It said it still considered the Akzo Nobel offer fair and reasonable and that its board was unanimously recommending it.Sherwin is the market leader in the American paints industry and has been expanding into South America. However, Courtaulds said no offer had been received and it was not possible to determine whether a firm offer would be forthcoming. The value of sales on a like-for-like basis rose 5.7 per cent in the year to April, up from just 0.4 per cent the previous month. But adjusting for the late Easter this year by taking the two months together suggested sales growth had slowed.. COURTAULDS, the coatings and fibres group which last month agreed a pounds 1.8bn offer from the Dutch chemicals group Akzo Nobel, revealed yesterday it had received a second bid approach which analysts said could lead to a bidding war for the company.

The second bidder is widely thought to be either PPG Industries or Sherwin Williams, two US paint groups which were both thought to be looking at Courtaulds before it agreed the 450p per share offer from Akzo Nobel.
Courtaulds, one of Britain’s oldest companies, revealed the second approach in its recommended offer document by Akzo Nobel which it posted yesterday. But much of that rise was due to the increase in excise duties announced in March’s Budget.One question mark hanging over the outlook for the Government’s target measure of inflation, the retail price index less mortgage interest costs, is what will happen to prices at the factory gate if the pound falls even further. It has shed 20 pfennigs since hitting its peak of DM3.10 last month.Another concerns the pace of consumer spending, which has so far kept retail price inflation stubbornly above its target. The latest survey by the British Retail Consortium showed a bounce in sales in April following a very subdued March.However, the BRC said taking the two months together suggested a slowdown in the growth of high street spending had begun. Output prices rose 0.1 per cent in April, and 1 per cent year- on-year.