People and Business: Designer label

HANSON, the building materials rump left over from Lord Hanson's empire, has been buying companies like mad, mostly in the US. This has left Hanson with a host of US subsidiaries, all with confusingly different names. The company has paid half a million pounds to the design consultancy Pauffley of London to come up with a unifying logo.

The logo consists of a brick with two blue dots on it. And all the new subsidiaries have been relabelled "Hanson". No doubt shareholders will be delighted with this expenditure.