City File: BM Group

WHAT ON earth is going on at BM Group, the fast-growing construction equipment and engineering company?

Worries over accounting policies followed by the sudden resignation, on health grounds, of BM's chairman and driving force, Roger Shute, sent its share price sliding from pounds 4 at the beginning of June to a low of 81p. Friday brought a rebound to 143p after the group announced that management accounts confirmed there would only be a modest decline in earnings per share for the year to the end of June.

A satisfactory performance is expected for the current year. Whether the stock market's concern that all is not as it seems proves well founded, it is plain that the days of heady growth at BM in which one acquisition followed another at increasingly hectic pace, are over for good.

In future the group intends to concentrate on streamlining the organisation and building market share through organic growth. That's tough in the construction equipment sector.