The reason is that holidaymakers have been shying away from the region for fear that local hotels and guesthouses will be affected by water restrictions. The operation comes as a surprise to many who know Tony as a fit fellow who regularly works out and wields a mean racket on the tennis court. FD says “he’s fine and making a good recovery.”Meanwhile, the company is on the verge of signing a deal with its French majority shareholder which will see the French company buy out the directors who own 35 per cent of the company. Mr Knox, 50, went into hospital last Wednesday and is expected to be away from City spin-doctoring for three to four weeks. England comes bottom with a 10 per cent chance (jointly with Greece) while Germany is seen as the most likely with a 90 per cent probability.
As for the footie, the economists are tipping Spain to beat the Netherlands in the final with England reaching the quarter-final stages. Rather disloyally they reckon Switzerland won’t make it past the preliminary stages.Tony Knox, the chairman of City PR firm Financial Dynamics, is recovering at home after a triple by-pass heart operation.

They have turned their thoughts to the impending European football championships, weaving in a dash of political and economic comment on all the participating nations. It is all neatly packaged in the bank’s newly published Euro’96 Special. But using a deft piece of footwork even Gazza would be proud of, it has used the football tournament as a metaphor for monetary union, pondering the chances of the various countries achieving the criteria for monetary union by 1999. Pre-exceptional profits of pounds 73m this year would put the shares on a forward rating of 18 High enough..

Economists at SBC Warburg have clearly had a bit of time on their hands recently. In January 1994, the group dropped the traditional “front-end” charge on its key PEP products to revive flagging sales. That has clearly had the desired effect, although M&G had a following wind from a booming stock market and a buoyant unit and investment trust market. It also had the benefit in the latest six months of the launch of the M&G Equity Investment Trust, which pulled in pounds 156m of new funds, including pounds 131m in Peps.
In all, funds under management were 25 per cent higher at pounds 15.3bn over the past year, which looks impressive until you compare it against rivals. Perpetual has seen funds grow by a massive 60 per cent a year over the past five, admittedly from a low base.M&G has done well with its unsung institutional fund management side, which added pounds 355m of new money in the six months and now represents well over a third of the total. Early signs of the long-awaited recovery in life and pensions is also good news.But M&G faces a number of problems. Margins are clearly increasingly under pressure, the performance of its funds has been less than sparkling and, perhaps most seriously, a flood of retail money into unit trusts is usually a sure sign of the end of a bull market.

M&G once had a claim to be described as the Marks & Spencer of the retail savings industry. But unlike the retailer, M&G’s crown has been slipping a little of late. On the face of it, yesterday’s 18 per cent rise in interim profits to pounds 31.2m for the six months to March was respectable enough and M&G’s shares dipped just 8p to pounds 11.96. Gross sales of unit and investment trusts soared by pounds 161m, or 41 per cent, to pounds 558m in the period, helping M&G retain its position as market leader in the sector.