Overlap in Europe on sales and refining is virtually non existent.From an investment point of view too, the deal looks like a dream marriage, the only caviat being that size on this scale often proves unwieldy and consequently unmanageable. BP will become number one or two in the market in terms of sales across a large swathe of the US Eastern seaboard and the Mid West, but even so market share won’t be high enough to justify radical regulatory surgery. Certainly BP’s takeover looks unlikely to encounter serious regulatory obstacles. Yesterday’s awesome merger announcement from BP and Amoco brings together two of the six companies so forceably extracted from the original Standard Oil – Standard Oil of Ohio (now part of BP) and Standard Oil of Indiana (from which Amoco grew).
Well, we live in a global economy now don’t we, and mergers which even ten years ago would have been seen as unacceptable are now positively welcomed by regulators and politicians alike. Time marches on, and now through merger and acquisition, these old monopolies are being reassembled, or at least partially so. Long distance telephone operators are merging with Bell operating companies, and the Baby Bells are merging one with another.

Later the Justice Department moved on AT&T too, breaking it up into a long distance operator and a collection of local Bell operating companies, the so called Baby Bells. THE BREAK-UP of John D Rockefeller’s Standard Oil in 1911 was one of the first big anti trust cases brought in the US. He joined BP and had spells in Alaska, New York and San Francisco.In 1984, Sir John was whisked back to head office by chairman Bob Horton to become chief treasurer before being put in charge of exploration.In 1991 he joined the board, and four years later he became chief executive working alongside Lord Simon, the BP chairman who has moved into government.Where Lord Simon was sociable and media-friendly, Sir John has remained aloof and intensely private.. She can be seen at his side at BP social functions and at the opera when Sir John indulges one of his few passions.But the real family in Sir John’s life is BP: He is renowned for working enormous numbers of hours. His sense of commitment goes back to his days at King’s School in Ely and then St John’s College, Cambridge.He came out with a first in physics and went on to Stanford, falling in love with the US. But he is also respected across the Atlantic where BP is liked and its shares busily traded on Wall Street.He has considerable experience working all over North America and is chairman of the advisory board at Stanford business school, where he completed his academic training.Sir John actually began his education at an American school, but that was in Iran where his father was posted by his employer, BP.Although Browne junior comes across as the perfect English gentleman, he was born in Hamburg and his mother is Rumanian.With his father now dead, Sir John lives as a bachelor with his mother, Paula, in his Belgravia home.

He does have a weakness for cigars, but he is physically small, immaculately groomed, and speaks softly with a Cambridge University correctness.
But no-one who has sat across a deal table from him or witnessed his ability to make swingeing job cuts would see Sir John as anything other than a tough campaigner.The 50-year-old BP boss is loved in the financial community for the remarkable rehabilitation of the company’s share and trading performances in recent years. ANYONE LOOKING less like the larger than life, cigar-chomping caricature of a typical oilman than BP chief executive, Sir John Browne, would be hard to find. However, there was relief in the UK that the axe will fall on only 500 domestic jobs after speculation the number would be twice as large

Investment, page 17. The City welcomed the pounds 267m restructuring and the share price moved swiftly upward, but unions called for urgent meetings.

BOC, is to axe almost 5,000 jobs worldwide to improve profitability and shield itself against a trading slowdown, the industrial gases group confirmed yesterday. The shares have halved in value, reflecting lacklustre performances on the pitch and the City’s disillusionment with football They closed at 542.5p yesterday.. Mr Ellis, nicknamed “Deadly Doug” because of his penchant for sacking managers, received a salary package worth pounds 204,421 in the year to May, up from pounds 127,644 in the previous twelve months. Fans who bought shares in the club at 1100p when it floated last year, have not fared so well. But analysts said it was unclear how a share swap could be organised given that Dresdner was not listed on Wall Street Both banks declined to comment yesterday.. DOUG ELLIS, the chairman of Aston Villa, was awarded a massive 60 per cent pay rise last year even though shares in the Premier League football club have fallen sharply. Secondly, a purchase could be made in co-operation with insurance giant Allianz, which owns about 22 per cent of Dresdner and which plans to increase its co-operation with the bank in asset management.
The third option, favoured by analysts, would involve a pooling of interests similar to the share swap employed in the Daimler-Chrysler merger.