Ownership of Royal Mail should be a top election issue, says ALEX BRUMMER

Of all the takeover battles on the table at present, there is none more significant to Britain than the proposed £3.6billion sell-off of International Distribution Services, the owner of the Royal Mail, to Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.

The passive way in which the board agreed to the deal and feeble undertakings made by Kretinsky is disgraceful.

Chairman Keith Williams and his team should step down and make way for a new slate of director more capable of running a vital utility in the interests of all stakeholders, including the consumers and posties.

The rush to get the deal done parallels the election timetable. Under normal circumstances, this is a transaction which would have commanded the full attention of the Commons Business Committee, with testimony from all the protagonists, including Kretinsky and his operations chief Roman Silha. 

The fallout from such hearings, focusing on the fate of an institution serving the country for 508 years, would have been enough to kill it in its tracks.

The election has brought the workings of the Commons, Whitehall and the regulator Ofcom to a halt. 

There are no such barriers to a City deal which is in danger of sneaking under the wire while government is otherwise engaged. 

Such a sale, with a huge impact on the NHS and the operations of HMRC, should have commanded the attention of government and opposition. 

Instead, there have been mealy mouthed words from the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and waffle about the UK need to attract overseas capital.

Ownership of the Royal Mail ought be an open goal for a prospective Labour government, partly funded by the unions. 

Labour’s economic team, headed by Rachel Reeves and Jonathan Reynolds, have behaved like rabbits in the headlights, afraid perhaps of upsetting the notion that Keir Starmer’s party is business friendly. 

Ownership of the Royal Mail should be a top issue in a campaign dominated by vacuous pledges.

Fashion fandango

A listing with a valuation of £50billion in London was always going to be irresistible to the City and Britain’s politicians.

So an initial public offering for Singapore-based fast fashion champion Shein always was likely to be embraced.

For the last several years, much of the traffic has been in the opposite direction with many executives seeking the get-rich-quick pay scales in the US. 

Justifying high pay in London is more difficult as protests about the £8.2million package for Centrica chief executive Chris O’Shea demonstrates.

The issues about Shein are complex. Chairman Donald Tang and founder Chris Xu were always going to find a New York float a big ask. 

A rabidly anti-Chinese mood in the US was a high hurdle. Even though Shein is based in Singapore, its engine is in the People’s Republic and suspicions about working conditions run deep.

There can be no pretence that UK investors feel any less strongly about any of this. Boohoo found itself under heavy fire over conditions in its factories. 

The Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh in 2013 cast a harsh light on conditions there and led Primark among others to insist on higher building and factory standards.

Tang has made a big effort to court both government and Labour politicians, including shadow Business Secretary Reynolds. 

There will be an intense glare on Shein, known for its cheap disposable fashion. But the UK pays scant attention to production of other goods made in China, ranging from electric vehicles to laptops. Picking and choosing is hypocritical. 

Shein will provide a much needed confidence boost to an under-valued equity market.

Music stopped

One couldn’t but notice the fulsome death notices for musical philanthropist Sir Ian Stoutzker. 

He was the first investment banker I ever interviewed in the gung-ho days of the Barber boom of the 1970s. 

He was among a quad of executives who ran the investment bank Keyser Ullmann, rescued by the Bank of England when the property bubble burst. 

His career was resurrected during a stint at another financial group Dawnay Day which acquired remnants of Keyser’s operations.

Property booms and busts are an enduring feature of free market capitalism as the Chinese are learning.