If you ask Stefano Pessina whether he pays enough tax, expect derision. The Italian chairman of Alliance Boots has been carping about the anti-business sentiment in the UK. The "general atmosphere" is barely tolerable, he grumbles. People don't show enough respect. And the state of the ice-cream. Don't get him started on the ice-cream. Life's tough for billionaire private-equity kings. It's a wonder they put up with the rest of us.

Everyone deserves a second chance. So those who have raised eyebrows at the news that Andy Hornby, the man in charge at HBOS when the bank hit the credit crunch buffers, has been appointed to run the bookmaker Coral, should bite their tongues. In any case, Hornby, who stood down from a stint at Alliance Boots earlier this year, knows a thing or two about gambling. OK, so the bets HBOS made didn't quite come off, but they were of an order of magnitude that Coral will never have to face.

Alliance Boots, the wholesale pharmaceutical and retail health and beauty retail giant, has launched a vigorous defence of its UK tax payments.

Alliance Boots has cited "stress" as being among the key reasons why Andy Hornby left his role as group chief executive this year.

He did it for private equity, helping to invent the business in its modern form and now he wants to do it for King's Lynn too. Jon Moulton has given businessmen in the Norfolk town a pep talk, advising them that they are in "the very best part of the UK for small and medium businesses to flourish". Not that he actually made it to their locality, you understand, appearing at the event courtesy of a video conferencing facility.

Among the many bank bosses vilified after the British banking crisis, only Andy Hornby bounced straight back. After he lost his grip on HBOS and it had to be rescued from collapse, he was quickly rehired by Boots as chief executive.

Never let it be said that Alliance Boots is a company that does not move quickly and decisively. No sooner had it announcedyesterday that Andy Hornby, its chief executive, was stepping down with immediate effect, than all trace of him had been wiped from the company's website. We're all for corporations making sure this sort of information is as up-to-date as possible, but Mr Hornby had barely had time to clear his desk. Give the man a break.

Health and beauty chain Alliance Boots has announced the shock resignation of boss Andy Hornby after less than two years in the role.

Alliance Boots, the pharmacy and health and beauty giant, achieved a 15.6 per cent leap in total revenues in the final quarter of 2010, despite challenging trading and the UK's heavy snowfall.

He looks familiar

Boots is to expand its drive-through pharmacy format following a successful trial in Colchester.

Given the leaky nature of banks – HSBC's recent succession travails were a prime example – Lloyds Banking Group deserves congratulations for keeping under wraps the hiring of Antonio Horta-Osorio as its new chief executive until it felt ready to announce it. One of The Independent's rivals was even claiming yesterday that the bank had yet to appoint headhunters. Officially, the line from Lloyds on Tuesday, as it unveiled its third-quarter numbers, was that the search was "progressing". If only banks always made such speedy progress.

The UK's second biggest supermarket, Asda, is to close its final-salary pension scheme after the scheme's deficit almost doubled to £400m in the past nine months alone.