Terra Firma, the private equity firm controlled by the City financier Guy Hands, is among a small number of buy-out companies that have submitted second-round bids of up to £300m to acquire the Garden Centre Group (GCG).

Wiggle, the online cycling retailer, has been acquired by the private equity firm Bridgepoint in a deal worth £180m.

Outlook When Sir John Rose stood down in February from a long and illustrious term of office running Rolls-Royce, this column was one of many to heap praise on the contribution he had made to British manufacturing and technology. I also urged the Government to find a way to use his skills and experience.

If history is the sum of innumerable biographies, it is bound to be full of gaps; for most human beings made scarcely a mark on the annals of the past, perishing as though they had never been. Occasionally, however, records of obscure existences do survive, often scattered to the four winds. This is true in the case of the 11 surviving children of James and Barbara Johnstone, born in the lowlands of Scotland between 1720 and 1739. By a prodigious feat of research, Emma Rothschild unearthed a treasure-trove of documentary evidence about them. In this marvellous book she uses it to reconstruct a family life that would otherwise be lost.

And what does he do?

I'm not entirely sad to say that Piers Morgan's problems haven't gone away just yet. And nor, I imagine, have those of the once-married Heather Mills and Paul McCartney. In 2006, Morgan wrote of having heard a touching voicemail left for Mills by McCartney after an argument. So touching was said voicemail, claims the bothersome blogger Guido Fawkes, that Piers played it to the Mirror newsroom so that any Beatles-loving colleagues might share the moment when Macca warbled "We Can Work It Out" to his wife.

The Saturday Column

Tony Hayward, the former head of BP who was forced to depart in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico spill, has joined the new advisory board at Numis, the City investment banking and broking firm.

Billionaire financier Nat Rothschild has planned a £1m 40th birthday bash in a tiny Adriatic hotspot

The current boom in wine investment is giving scammers the chance to con investors out of thousands of pounds.

The former BP boss Tony Hayward put his troubles at the oil giant behind him yesterday, as the successful placing of his Vallares vehicle raised £1.35bn.

The name Rothschild is arguably the most powerful in the world of high finance. The family operates in a rarefied, aristocratic and largely private realm of mega-investments and major shareholdings in international banks. As you read this, Nathaniel Rothschild is concluding a deal to turn a £100m investment into a new £1bn gas and oil company, in 11 days.

The stories I have been told are of secret grief and hidden angst bursting out in an extraordinary way. But the silence is at last being broken, the unsayable said

He looks very familiar.