It's less than a month since the board of Hambros Insurance (HIS) 52 per cent owned by the ailing Hambros Bank pulled out of takeover talks with Kevin Kenny's Fishers International. But there are some indications that Kenny's ambitious plans may be revived given the reports that Schroders has been sent into Hambros to put together a strategy to turn around a bank that is currently generating a dismal £1 million profits on net assets of over £290 million.
Analysts in London believe that one obvious target for a shake-up at Hambros is a sell-off of the majority stake in HIS and that Fishers is still waiting in the wings. If Kevin Kenny does make another pitch, however, it is unlikely that he will be as generous as he was with his initial bid which valued HIS shares at 120p and the entire company at £84 million sterling. Those same HIS shares are now trading at just 107p.
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