London Briefing/Fiona WalshTwo very different private companies - Patak's and Last.fm - last week gave up their independence as they accepted bids from much larger, publicly-quoted rivals.
Patak's, founded half a century ago, satisfies the British public's appetite for curry sauces, pickles and poppadums, while Last.fm, a mere toddler of the business world at just five years old, caters to the online music market.
For the curry firm, the £100 million (€147 million) plus offer from Associated British Foods (ABF) will bring to an end half a century of ownership by the Pathak family, who came to Britain in the 1950s as refugees from Kenya.
Laxmishanker Pathak arrived in London accompanied by his wife and six children and with just £5 to his name. He found he was unable to get work other than sweeping the streets but realised there was a huge market for Asian food in the UK. He and his wife began making samosas in their tiny kitchen and, after a few years, opened their first shop in Camden, dropping the "h" in the company name to make it easier for the British to pronounce.
The business is now run by Laxmishanker's son, Kirit, and his wife Meena, regarded as the creative force behind the business. Their three children also work in the firm, which produced sales of some £66 million in its last financial year.
ABF, owner of the Twinings tea to Sunblest bread and Silver Spoon sugar group, has been wooing the Pathak family for more than five years and is delighted to have secured the deal. The market for "world food" is growing faster than the overall food market and it will merge the business with its oriental brand, Blue Dragon.
For the family, which in recent years was torn apart by by the so-called "spice wars" - a bitter court battle between Kirit and his two sisters, who argued that they had been cheated out of their inheritance - the deal makes them multimillionaires and provides funds to take the business to the next level.
The sale of London-based Last.fm is a different rags-to-riches tale, which sees its founders become Britain's wealthiest "Web 2.0" millionaires. Martin Stiksel, Felix Miller and Richard Jones sold their music and social networking site to US television network CBS in a $280 million (€207 million) deal.
While the Pathak family business took 50 years to build up, Last.fm has existed for just five years. It claims to be the world's largest social music platform, tracking the musical tastes of its 15 million users and allowing them to custom-build their own radio stations.
Set up in 2002, in the dark days after the first technology bubble burst, Last.fm's founders struggled to keep the business afloat in the early days. At one stage, they were forced to live in tents on the roof of their one-room office in Whitechapel, east London, when they were unable to pay the rent on their flats.
There have been some sizeable deals in the Web 2.0 world, including Rupert Murdoch's $580 million takeover of social networking site MySpace and Google's $1.65 billion takeover of the video site YouTube last year, but this is the biggest British deal to date.
Like the Pathaks, the Last.fm team turned down a number of offers before accepting the CBS deal. The clincher for both buyouts was the promise that the businesses would be allowed to retain their independent identities under their new owners.
And there was extra spice in the Patak's deal - while the full details have not been disclosed, the family could earn a further £90 million from ABF if profits reach certain targets in the next five years.
In good sport?
Heard the one about the billionaire, the City banker and the £200,000 game of spoof? It may sound like a joke, but shareholders in Mike Ashley's besieged Sports Direct company are not laughing.
The reclusive Ashley's credibility was dealt a blow last week as chairman David Richardson resigned just three months after its flotation.
But perhaps more alarming for investors is the extraordinary story of the £200,000 game of spoof. It has emerged that the maverick Ashley, disputing legal fees associated with the Sports World float, challenged Merrill Lynch investment banker Simon Mackenzie-Smith to the game more commonly played in pubs than City boardrooms.
The loser would take the £200,000 hit. Fortunately for Mackenzie-Smith he won, and Ashley has apparently paid up.
As Sports Direct shares continue to hit new lows, the extraordinary tale has done nothing to ease investors' fears over the way in which the business is run. Neither has it enhanced the reputation of one of the City's most powerful investment banks.
