Since then, the telecoms industry has been through the mangle. Energis went bust and Cable & Wireless might have done so too had it not baled out of some of its biggest assets - One2One and Hongkong Telecom - at close to the top of the market.As first reported by The Independent a few weeks back, the two are now in merger talks, with a mooted price being put on Energis of £700m. If Archie Norman, the Energis chairman, and his chief executive, John Pluthero, manage to persuade C&W to pay that, then they truly would deserve the £20m or so they stand to get out of it. Frankly, I cannot imagine Francesco Caio, the C&W chief executive, paying anywhere close, despite the cash pile still burning a hole in C&W's pocket.This is approaching double what Permira, Apax and Carlisle were offering the banks for Energis in a consortium bid three years ago It is not clear prospects have changed markedly since then. If anything, Energis's revenues are lower than then, nor does the company seem yet to be cash generative.

Admittedly, there was no strategic value in Energis to the private equity bidders, but industrial logic can be as much a negative as a positive. Telecoms companies, with their different systems and technologies, are notoriously difficult to integrate, and there is a considerable operational risk in attempting to do so.C&W would knock out a competitor for business telecommunications, but with so many rivals still around, it is not clear this would have a noticeable impact on prices C&W would still be a poor second in terms of market share. There's no doubting the industrial logic of such a get together, yet the price now may be as wrong for C&W as it was when Mr Wallace first dismissed the idea five years ago.Unless Mr Norman reduces his expectations somewhat, I may have to wait even longer to see my prediction come true. Wilson blow to M&S turnaround The departure of Charles Wilson as Stuart Rose's right-hand man at Marks & Spencer is no doubt a blow to the company's credibility as it struggles to achieve the desired turnaround, but its significance beyond that is being blown out of proportion.Only 39, Mr Wilson already has an enviable reputation as an operational manager, with a clinically analytical approach to stock control and negotiation that impressed even the ever demanding Philip Green when Mr Wilson worked for him at Arcadia. He wouldn't for ever want to live in Mr Rose's shadow.At first sight, the decision to ditch Marks & Spencer in favour of the Baugur-controlled Booker none the less looks an odd one, the equivalent of moving from the top of the Premier League to somewhere deep down in the first or even second divisions.That's not much of a vote of confidence in the turnaround at M&S, some rivals were saying yesterday. Yet no doubt he will be well rewarded, and anyway, he already knows the business well, having helped Mr Rose turn around the Booker cash and carry company in the late 1990s.

It will be his show, as opposed to someone else's.As for M&S, the heavy lifting in terms of stripping out working capital and renegotiating with suppliers, is now largely complete. Mr Wilson's usefulness at M&S was already approaching its end.His departure follows a fierce power struggle at M&S when an attempt was made by the senior non-executive, Kevin Lomax, to oust the chairman, Paul Myners, Mr Rose's main supporter on the board It may be that Mr Wilson hoped to gain from the fallout. In the end, a messy compromise was engineered which seems to ensure Mr Rose's position for at least the foreseeable future. If Mr Rose fails, Mr Wilson would scarcely be first in line as a successor. And if Mr Rose succeeds, then Mr Wilson was unlikely to get a run at the top job anyway.The position at M&S is not significantly altered; it's still as tough as ever but unlikely to be made worse by Mr Wilson's departure.j.warner independent.co.uk. Professional investors were busy taking bear positions in Jarvis yesterday before the troubled construction group's restructuring next month.