Pierce Casey could not hide his exasperation last week at the contrasting ways that the London market values his Fayrewood computer products company and the way the Neuer Markt values Computerlinks, the company in which Fayrewood has a 15 per cent stake.

The disparity between the valuations is quite bizarre. Fayrewood, which has other substantial businesses apart from its stake in Computerlinks, is valued at just £44 million sterling (€73 million). In contrast, Computerlinks is valued on the Neuer at €77 million, even though it is only part of Fayrewood's overall business. Something strange there.

It's hardly a surprise then that Mr Casey is finding a way of distributing Fayrewood's stake in Computerlinks directly to Fayrewood's own shareholders, giving the 4,000 shareholders a potential windfall. That, however, won't sort out the more fundamental problem of Fayrewood's own rating on the London exchange, where investors seem to take a radically different approach to valuing companies than their counterparts in Frankfurt.