That puts BOC shares on a forward multiple of around 14, which fairly reflects a belief that the company is not out of the woods yet Hold.. However, as countless companies have shown, reducing a cost base in a static market can become a never-ending process.Stockbroker CSFB was yesterday among those keeping its 1998 pre-tax profit forecasts at pounds 380m. This may come from asset sales such as BOC’s non-Marks & Spencer distribution services operations and maybe its German and Benelux gas businesses.In a market sharply down, the shares yesterday gave up just 4p to 736p, reflecting the fact that some are now bullish about a stock which has slid from a year high of 1,035p. The company has set aside pounds 167m as an exceptional charge to cover the reorganisation costs, but BOC thinks the restructuring could cost another pounds 100m in total. It is here that the chief executive, Danny Rosencranz, has decided the future of the group lies.The surgery announced yesterday reflects both the decision to concentrate on gases and the impact of immediate external trading problems.One-tenth of the company’s employees are to lose their jobs in a bid to bring savings of pounds 120m a year. But the figures contained some nasty individual results, with vacuum technology showing a 48 per cent drop in third-quarter operating profits.Fortunately the key gases division held up well, lifting operating profits by 12 per cent in the third quarter. But yesterday the City was quietly applauding a brave decision by the industrial gases group’s management.

The question is whether the cull will be enough to buck longer-term trends of economic slowdown in BOC’s main markets such as Britain, South Africa and maybe even the US.
The short-term threats are obvious enough, with the downturn in South- east Asia and the strong pound ravaging the group’s nine-month results.Pre-tax profits of pounds 272.4m were down from pounds 325.4m last time, but in line with expectations. In come Nick Ward and Gareth Thomas from Credit Lyonnais Securities Europe.. BOC’S DECISION to axe almost 5,000 workers around the world is a tragedy for those concerned. Mr McCullagh is a veteran of several high profile deals, including Compass Healthcare, Automotive Products and Wellworths.MEHMET DALMAN continues his drive to grow Commerzbank Global Equities in London by creating a media equity research team. NatWest Global Financial Markets has hired Pablo Eizayaga as managing director of its global emerging markets group.Mr Eizayaga has been joined by members of his team from UBS and will be based in London, reporting to Howard Kurz, managing director and global head of foreign exchange.ACROSS TOWN BT Alex.Brown has poached Andrew McCullagh from Deutsche Morgan Grenfell to be a director in its leveraged finance group. The bunfight for corporate clients was held in the new London Aquarium, which is full of exotic and fearsome sea creaturesShandwick’s new chief executive Mike Murphy endeared himself to the assembled clients with his refreshing honesty when he quipped: “There are probably more sharks on the outside than in the tanks.”WHILE MOST sensible people have fled the scorching City for balmier climes, the headhunters are hard at it.

Nigel Evans (Con) advocated inheriting a fortune, marrying Liz Taylor or staying in bed, while Jane Griffiths advised taking sandwiches to work.Adrian Sanders (Lib Dem) says: “Don’t buy pedal bin liners; use the supermarket shopping bags they give you for free.”The most disgraceful bit of advice comes from his colleague Lembit Opik, MP for Montgomeryshire: “Don’t spend anything and leave just before its your round in the pub.” I would never do that …CITY SPIN doctors Shandwick had a jolly time at their summer party in the GLC’s County Hall last month. If the OFT manages to derail the 1992 financing agreement worth pounds 304 million between BSkyB, the BBC and the Premier clubs, all rights to screening top UK football could be up for grabs – just the kind of free-for-all Mr Chisholm would relish.MELINDA MESSENGER, Basil Brush, Ivana Trump and Geoffrey Robinson all get the vote from MPs as people they would trust to invest their money.The second annual Virgin Direct “Questions of cash” poll threw up a bizarre array of investment preferences from our representatives at Westminster.When asked which celebrity they would entrust to invest pounds 1,000 of their own money, three Labour MPs and one Lib Dem answered Gordon Brown.Ken Livingstone, maverick Labour MP and prospective candidate for Mayor of London, answered: “Anyone except Gordon Brown.” His money-saving hint was “don’t own a car” – Londoners, be warned.Returning to people best able to invest pounds 1,000, Colin Breed (Lib Dem) went for Ms Messenger; Jane Griffiths (Lab) opted for Ms Trump; Michael Moore (Lib Dem) picked the glove puppet Basil Brush; and Barry Gardiner (Lab) went for Mr Robinson, Paymaster-General and noted offshore investor.The survey also asked MPs for handy money-saving hints, and no less than three advised “don’t have children”. In a similar move Greg Dyke, chief executive of Pearson Television, joined the board of Manchester United last year.Mr Chisholm’s expertise may come in handy next year when a probe by the Office of Fair Trading into football finance comes to court. Fellow director Douglas Alexiou has also decided to call it a day.Since his departure from Rupert Murdoch’s employment last year on health grounds, Mr Chisholm has launched a fledgling media and sports rights company from offices in Conduit Street, London, together with his former deputy David Chance.The New Zealander’s other main roles are deputy chairman of the New Millenium Experience Company (with Michael Grade), and director of At Home Enterprises, a Polish media company.Tottenham’s Chairman Alan Sugar said yesterday: “Sam’s knowledge of international broadcasting and future trends in the industry will be a major asset to Tottenham.”The appointment is part of a trend in football clubs, which are desperate to get on board people who understand the lucrative world of TV rights. Tony Berry, the former boss of Blue Arrow, has stepped down as deputy chairman of Spurs after 12 years as a director. Alan Sugar, chairman of the Premiership club, is keen to retain Mr Chisholm’s media expertise as negotiations over a possible European Super league threaten to turn football’s finances upside down.
At the same time the club has shed the last remnants of the pre-Sugar regime.

SAM CHISHOLM, the tough-talking former chief executive of British Sky Broadcasting, has joined the board of Tottenham Hotspur as a non- executive director. Asian travellers account for just 9 per cent of its revenues, and business custom is not as vulnerable to the strong pound.With the traditionally strong second half of the year starting well, Millennium could hardly be in a more positive position.All this was enough to convince investors in the City that the shares are oversold, and they promptly rose 12.5p to 455.5p.Analysts were also relieved that Millennium has so far not splashed out on a big hotel acquisition right at the top of the cycle, although the group is still looking to make acquisitions and reckons that it can spend as much as pounds 150m without having to raise cash from shareholders.On full-year profit forecasts of pounds 60m the shares trade on a forward PE of 15 – a discount to the rest of the market – suggesting the shares are good value.But, although Millennium has bucked the trend, uncertainty about a wider economic slowdown will continue to depress the shares Hold.. Until yesterday, the doom-mongers who have pushed Millennium’s shares down by almost 30 per cent since June were winning the argument, but Millennium hit back with an impressive set of first-half figures.
The group’s occupancy rates ticked up by 0.8 percentage points to 77.7 per cent, while average daily room rates advanced by 9 per cent to pounds 88.26.What’s more, Millennium Copthorne is optimistic about current trading. IS MILLENNIUM & Copthorne in denial? Investors are convinced that the entire hotel sector is facing a slowdown as a result of the Asian crisis and the strong pound But the hotel group remains stubbornly bullish. Until some firm news comes through on cost savings and product development, they are high enough..

The company blamed the disruption caused by the merger and vowed that sales would bounce back next year helped by several market-leading products.The pharmaceutical division was also disappointing and looks ripe for a sale, as it is too small to compete with the bigger players.But the real bad news came on the cost-saving side of the merger, where the company admitted that its target of pounds 37m in improvements for 1998 would not be met and said that investors would have to settle for pounds 30m this year.Nycomed maintained that this was just a “rephasing” of revenues and would not jeopardise its goal of pounds 70m of cost savings by the year 2000.This may well be so, but added to the uncertainties over imaging and biotech, it looks as if Nycomed is asking investors to take a little bit too much on trust.After yesterday’s 7.25p slide to 395p, the shares are on more than 20 times forecast 1998 earnings of around pounds 230m. Yesterday’s maiden interim results, which showed an 8 per cent increase in profits to pounds 114m on turnover down 2 per cent to pounds 667.9m, are a step in the right direction.
The imaging division, which provides the bulk of the group’s sales, benefited from its efforts to move away from the low-margin, highly competitive US X-ray market towards more sophisticated products such as booming Iodine Seeds, used in the treatment of prostate cancer.Nycomed will have to continue down this road and hope that the new products can offset the fall in X-Ray sales in the long term.The biotechnology division, a joint venture with the US drug giant Pharmacia & Upjohn, posted flat sales. NYCOMED AMERSHAM remains a company in transition. More than year after the pounds 2bn merger between the UK health sciences group, Amersham, and the Norwegian X-ray specialist, Nycomed, the enlarged healthcare group is still trying to find its own identity.