Jason Nissé: It's make or break for Jarvis as PPP comes thundering down the track

I'm not going to comment on Colin Skellett's guilt or innocence, save to say no one who has had anything to do with him can believe that the Wessex Water chairman would – in the infamous terminology of Terry Venables – like a bung. What his arrest has done is to cast a pall over the hapless Jarvis, which could do without seeing its chairman being arrested for something completely unconnected to the company.

Jarvis – and its high-profile chief executive Paris Moayedi – seems to get into more scrapes than Sylvester the Cat, Porky the Pig and Bugs Bunny combined. Potters Bar, Hatfield, executive pay, curious accounting and the London Underground PPP are all issues that put Jarvis high on the agenda. In fact, the only rival that is in danger of eclipsing it for controversy is Amey, the accounting challenged "support services" firm that has also had a few boardroom issues.

The two are joined at the hip in one deal – Tubelines' takeover of the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines. Ken Livingstone and Bob Kiley must be on holiday, or they would be making capital out of the troubles of Jarvis and Amey.

Assuming no unforeseen hiccups, this deal will finally move from the platform in November. The profits from the PPP are the main thing giving investors in Amey and Jarvis medium-term hope.

But whatever Ken and Bob say, the PPP is not a licence to print money. It is a highly operationally geared deal where underperformance will be severely punished financially.

If all goes well, there is a lot of road and rail investment that could be routed through the duo. The Strategic Rail Authority is at the point of letting a whole series of contracts, and will look to use what it calls Special Purpose Vehicles – a more manageable version of the Tube PPP – to do these deals. This makes the operational gearing of Tubelines all the more crucial. For if the PPP goes off the rails, Amey and Jarvis will surely be dragged down with it.

Cookson could face the Lynch mob

What starts at 49.5p, ends at 25.5p, and brings a lots of stress to some pretty nervous stockbrokers along the way? Cookson's share price.

We will know early this week how much of a "success" the beleaguered chemical group's attempt to raise £277.5m by issuing shares at 25p each has been. But, whatever the result, investors have suffered.

Cookson needed to raise cash to pay off its short-term debts. Disposing of a business was clearly out of the question. Going to the bond market was also not going to be a runner (though maybe a convertible issue might have worked).

So it had to be a share issue. But the choice of a deeply discounted rights issue – which was bound to savage the share price – was always going to be painful for shareholders. And it didn't even work out as a cost-effective option for Cookson.

If the group raises all the money, it will have paid some £13.5m of fees to those who have acted as its advisers.

Of this, around £7m will be paid whatever, and the rest goes to brokers Cazenove and Merrill Lynch in a performance-related payment once £100m is raised.

My guess is that Cookson will get little more than £200m, so the brokers will share a mere £3.2m.

Will this be enough for Cookson? If the US economy starts picking up, yes. If it stays in the doldrums, Cookson will have gone though a painful and expensive process only to end up at the mercy of its bankers.

Cazenove has its own reasons for hoping the market regains its appetite for new issues. The venerable business wants to float. But where? Last week's suggestion was the Alternative Investment Market.

Back in the days of the dot-com boom people talked of "eating your own dog food", in other words "if the technology is so good, why don't you use it?" If Caz has so much faith in AIM, maybe it should persuade a few of its clients to use it. Currently it is the nominated adviser (or Nomad) to just one company, Radamec. And even Radamec didn't start its life on AIM. It was listed on the main market before it slid down to the junior partner. Before Caz decides to float on AIM, maybe it should try out the process with a client. But then again, it is a less expensive option and Caz needs the fees.

j.nisse@independent.co.uk