City: Heir apparent

WHEN the mysterious Dieter Bock bought his stake in Lonrho at the end of last year, most people assumed that Tiny Rowland's next meal had just walked in through the door. Perhaps it is time to reassess that view. It's never easy to tell with Lonrho, but Mr Bock seems to be stamping his authority on the company with surprising speed.

That, at least, is the impression round at headquarters in Cheapside, where the little coterie of senior directors is already fawning on him - a sure sign of who's boss. The City is also beginning, slowly, to change its mind. One broker, with a completely straight face, described Mr Bock to me last week as 'a man of energy, determination and vision'. Strong stuff. The initial evidence is that Mr Bock has persuaded Tiny to part with the Observer and now, boldest of all, he's taken on James Capel as his stockbroker. (Lonrho hasn't had a broker since UBS resigned last year in disgust at not being consulted over Tiny's hotel deal with the Libyans.)

Capel has experience of rehabilitating companies with a dodgy reputation among investors. They did it, for instance, with Guinness after the Distillers debacle. Their task with Lonrho is to investigate the company and explain it in a comprehensible way to institutional investors, most of whom have for years refused to touch its shares with a bargepole. This won't be easy for Capel, but there's no great risk.

The interesting thing is that by calling in Capel, Mr Bock himself is taking the biggest risk. If the brokers come across something really nasty under Lonrho's floorboards, they will have no choice but to withdraw. Lonrho's standing with the City would then be irretrievable - no rehabilitation, no badly needed rights issues, no recovery. And Mr Bock would lose his investment. So he must be very confident indeed that Lonrho is clean. He may still be wrong, but Capel is impressed enough to feel his judgement is worth backing.

And Tiny? Perhaps, after all, we've also misjudged him. His view of himself appears to be more that of a Man of Destiny, the African statesman, than I, for one, had thought. He spends most of his time these days jetting around the continent brokering peace deals in Mozambique or Angola. He seems content to leave much of the reconstruction of Lonrho to his designated successor, Mr Bock.