Big deals are rife in Europe and the corporate financiers are cashing in, says Dan Gledhill

SHARES IN Yates Brothers Wine Lodges, the pubs and bars group, have had a rocky ride over the past year. They have been in decline since peaking in August at 513.5p, closing at 327.5p ahead of yesterday's interim results. But the group, which posted half-year sales up 19 per cent at pounds 67m and operating profits up 15 per cent at pounds 7.1m, has at last started to please the market.

Canary Wharf is booming at last but its future prosperity is under threat from rival developments in the City, says Nick Mathiason

The Investment Column: William Morrison

MARK DIXON, founder and chairman of Regus Business Centres, is set to find his majority stake in the serviced-office provider valued at pounds 600m after it yesterday unveiled plans is list on the London Stock Exchange this autumn.

IT'S OFFICIAL. Wall Street is definitely heading for a terrible fall. Anyone who doubts this should read the latest "global strategy" bulletin from Barton Biggs, Morgan Stanley's grand old man of stock market punditry. His own view of US stock markets is actually a relatively measured one, but he cites a worryingly naive example of one which is not.

MORGAN STANLEY Dean Witter, the American financial services giant, yesterday upped the stakes in Britain's increasingly crowded credit card market with the launch of its first credit card outside the United States.

MORGAN STANLEY Dean Witter, the American financial services giant, yesterday upped the stakes in Britain's increasingly crowded credit card market with the launch of its first credit card outside the United States.

THE BATTLE to win the hearts and minds of internet investors is becoming more intense by the week. Share prices and information are clearly this summer's favourite features for websites. The latest company to join the fray is Freequotes, which has just launched its own share information service. As the name suggests, the data is free.

PUNCH TAVERNS yesterday made a new pounds 2,925bn offer for the 3,600 Allied Domecq pub estate and said it would address every issue the Allied board had raised when it decided to back the lower Whitbread offer.

THE POUND fell to its lowest level against the dollar for almost three years yesterday, raising hopes that sterling has finally started to depreciate.

Every now and then, something happens that reminds you the world is a curious place. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's handling of the Christian Curry affair is one of those events.

SCOTTISH WIDOWS, the mutually-owned pensions and life assurance group, is considering a stock market flotation which could value the business at pounds 4bn and mean a windfall distribution of shares worth an average of pounds 2,100 to its 1.9 million policyholders.

JAMES TUCKEY, chief executive of Britain's third largest quoted property company, MEPC, has quit with a pay-off of at least pounds 700,000 to make way for finance director Jamie Dundas, writes Anna Minton.