Business View: Should a laid-back gunslinger be able to catch a rat?

If you believe the gossips, Norsk Hydro is close to buying Centrica. Or is it Gaz de France? Or perhaps Shell? Or even Gazprom? Elsewhere, Wells Fargo - the most evocatively named bank in the world, bar the Espirito Santo financial group in Portugal, Finland's Postipankki and Poland's Big Bank Gdansk - is said to be eyeing Lloyds TSB.

Yet nothing has had tongues wagging as much as the interest in Rentokil Initial by a tiny outfit called Raphoe Management, which says it wants to take a 10 per cent stake and install its founder as executive chairman, to turn the ailing rat catcher around. But who is Raphoe? The clue is in the name - a reference to a small town in the west of Ireland which spawned Sir Gerry Robinson, the former boss of Granada, the recently deposed chairman of Allied Domecq, the feted former chairman of the Arts Council and the star of the BBC 2 series I'll Tell Them Who's Boss.

I bow to few in my admiration for Sir Gerry as a manager who turned around Granada. Some question how much of the regeneration plan at the TV-to-service-stations group was his, and how much he inherited from his derided predecessor, Derek Lewis. But three-quarters (if not more) is in the execution. And with his sidekick, Charles Allen, Gerry's execution was superb. One former colleague describes him thus: "He didn't stab you in the back. He stabbed you in the front, showing you the knife and saying why it was the best thing to do. And you ended up thanking him for it."

He also became a watchword for laid-back management. For him, staying late in the office was heresy; you got your work done and you went home. At Granada, Friday was truly Poets Day.

But after the initial success, the Granada story was less happy. The takeover of Forte is now a business-school case study on how a deal that appears to be strategically sensible can end up harming shareholder value. And the merger with Compass, spinning off the TV side into a business that ultimately became ITV, similarly did little to warm investors' pockets.

The 21st century has passed in a rather non-executive fashion for Sir Gerry. He helped guide Allied Domecq into the arms of Pernod Ricard after all attempts to fashion a merger with the Allied team in charge came to nought. On TV, he has helped all manner of private businesses sort themselves out, becoming the Sir John Harvey-Jones of our times. Few who have come into contact with Sir Gerry can help but like him.

90 per cent of Sir Gerry

But does this add up to a credible plan to take over Rentokil? Raphoe is no more than Sir Gerry and a secretary. He has a coterie of advisers, who are a little like the "Unforgiven" in the Clint Eastwood film - gunslingers who used to be feared, and may still have one last great hurrah in them. But he has no smart, sharp MBAs who can do all the analytical work to give ammunition to the brains.

And Rentokil does need managing. Its 93,000 employees need to be loved, directed and encouraged. Sir Gerry's supporters talk of invigoration, not break-up (Sir Gerry has, uncharacteristically, been silent). To do this, he needs to understand the business, which requires time, communication and information.

Doug Flynn, the newly appointed chief executive of Rentokil, may not have been the ideal choice, but he has had four months to find out what is wrong at the group (ancient ways of working, hierarchical structures, dreadful head office). And he is doing something about it.

Once Rentokil has given Raphoe the 10 per cent it wants, remaining investors will only get 90 per cent of any upside. They have to ask whether 90 per cent of Sir Gerry is better value than 100 per cent of Doug Flynn.

And they also have to ask whether all Raphoe's talk will result in a genuine offer. Or is it worth little more than all the other August speculation?

j.nisse@independent.co.uk