Stuart Rose has won plenty of plaudits for his rescue of Marks & Spencer, but a much less publicised recovery has taken place at ICI, led by reclusive chief executive John McAdam and chairman Peter Ellwood. They have paid off the monster £4bn overdraft and streamlined the business, but, in doing so, have made the group a far more tempting target for rivals such as Akzo Nobel of Holland and America's Dow Chemical.
ICI has not yet been approached by a bidder and is not sitting around waiting for one to show up. It has £250m in the bank and wants to seize the initiative with takeovers of its own in Asia, Latin America and eastern Europe.
The pension fund deficit has halved from its peak and continues to shrink, but at £800m the shortfall is still big enough to deter predators, whether trade buyers or private equity. That should give ICI breathing space to reassert itself. Without being too sentimental, it would be a fine thing to see the 80-year-old maker of Dulux paint regain some of its kudos as the standard-bearer for British industry.
Hanson, whose bid for ICI was a defining moment of the early Nineties, is being sold to Germany's Heidelberg Cement. Call me old-fashioned, but it would be a bit much to see both of these one-time icons fall in the same year.