City People

IT BEING Wimbledon fortnight, Jan Leschly, the chief executive of SmithKline Beecham, is spending time down at the lawns of SW19.

Unlike a lot of other chief execs, who could not tell a drop shot from a drive volley, Mr Leschly knows his onions. A former Danish Davis Cup player and Wimbledon quarter finalist, he reached number ten in the world rankings before swapping his racket for the job of running one of the world's biggest drug companies. He has another 18 months to go at SKB, although it has not yet been decided whether he will step up to the job of chairman.

Meanwhile, perhaps a new career beckons in cyberspace. All four of his sons are involved in the Internet in some way and Mr Leschly himself is fascinated by the commercial possibilities of this new medium. He reckons there is huge potential to exploit the healthcare market through the Internet. Stand by for drugs R Us at Leschly.dot.com.

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KLAUS DIEDERICHS, head of M&A at JP Morgan, has bared his soul to a major German newspaper about the wave of mega-mergers sweeping Europe. Probed by last week's "Suedeutsche Zeitung" over the job-loss backwash from all these mega-deals, the 43-year old Mr Diederichs marvels at how "little resistance" is being put up by politicians and unions. His explanation? "Perhaps the consequences have not yet been fully understood."

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FRESH FROM the unsuccessful bid for Greycoat, the George Soros/Jamie Ritblat vehicle, Delancey, may be lining up some more corporate action. With last week's acquisition by Delancey of a stake in Tops Estates - another of those little-known and undervalued stocks - many in the property world are predicting that the shopping-centre group will be the next target for the deadly duo.

First they will have to get past Everard Goodman, chairman of Tops, who owns a 44.4 per cent stake in the company and is known for his mercurial style and parsimony when it comes to corporate expenditure. Watch this space.

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WITH ALL the hype surrounding the renaming of Tarmac's construction arm Carillion,most have overlooked the listing particulars of Tarmac's building materials division, described as "New Tarmac".

However, Tarmac employees need not worry that the "New" prefix is there to stay - after the official launch of the new group next month the division will revert back to simple old "Tarmac".

Cynics have been heard to mutter: "If only it were so simple for the Labour Party."