Keith Butler-Wheelhouse has conducted a discreet, elegant auction for Smiths aerospace business, finding a strategic buyer willing to pay a full price.

General Electric is not only the world’s largest aeroengine maker, it is a US company with cachet in the halls of the Pentagon and the corridors of the commercial aviation industry. Smiths, Britain’s third-largest aerospace company, has found a sensible home in America’s most powerful industrial company.

GE can justify the price in ways that others could not. The company paid about 16 times operating profits, a lot more than analysts thought the business was worth. But GE can exploit Smiths technologies, combining them with its own strengths in heavier engineering and marketing.

The vast majority of Smiths employees work overseas. Judging by the comments from Jeff Immelt, GE’s chairman and chief executive, the jobs of the 2,500 people working for Smiths in the UK are, mostly, safe. GE’s record at Amersham should provide some comfort there.

But two questions linger. What now for the rest of British aerospace? Indeed, that question applies nowhere more clearly than to a company like BAE.

The UK’s leading defence and aerospace manufacturer has sold its shares in EADS and is going on a US shopping spree. BAE has mulled a deal with Boeing in the past. The logic that compelled Smiths into the arms of a US giant holds sway for a business like BAE.

When Smiths merged its aerospace business with TI Group in 2000, Mr Butler-Wheelhouse explained that he had gone for a UK acquisition because a US deal was too difficult. Now that America is buying, the independence of the UK’s own aviation sector is fading.

And what about Smiths? It delighted investors yesterday by clinching a $4.8 billion sale, which will return £2.1 billion to shareholders. They are excited about more than just one cheque in the mail. It has only reinforced the market’s appetite for the full break-up and sale of the conglomerate.

Improvements must be posted

Everything with the word “British” in it seems to be abandoning the Royal Mail.

British Telecom, British Gas, British Sky Broadcasting. Bulk users of the post office are leaving the Royal Mail in their droves, finding cheaper prices and, often, greater reliability offered by the new competitors to the former monopoly.

This, of course, is the faul of another British institution. The Government. It has structured the liberalisation of the postal market in such a way that the Royal Mail is bound to lose share to new challengers.

This is a form of deregulation that seems cruel - rather than beef up the incumbent for battle with new competitors, the UK has tied one arm behind the Royal Mail’s back and sent it into the fight.

The irony is that Royal Mail could, if liberated, be the most powerful operator in postal services.

It ought to gain an advantage from being verticaly integrated. But it is now forced to give up profitable bulk business - more than half its revenues come from about 100 or so corporate clients - under the regulatory rules imposed on it.

The only good news for the Royal Mail in all this is that it will serve as an impetus for a deal.

The argument between Allan Leighton, the former Asda chairman pressing for a phantom share scheme that brings the postal group one step closer to privatisation, and the Government, which seems to be fretting about the political fallout, is that it shows that the longer this process takes, the more harm is done to the Royal Mail.

Wait much longer and it may be weakened beyond saving.

Both right and left may have spotted flaws in Mr Leighton’s scheme. Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, may be concerned about the impact on the Labour vote. But if both remain entrenched, they will botyh lose.

BT, Centrica, BSkyB all delivered the same message to the Royal Mail yesterday: It is running out of time.

Funny money

It is often said that the only way to make a small fortune in the movie business is to start with a big one. Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner have disproved that. They have not only made a handsome living, but have built the only durable film business in Britain: Working Title.

Universal has just signed them up for another seven years, committing an estimated $1 billion to their films and sealing Working Title’s place as a breed apart in British film-making. Indeed, it holds its own in the US, ranking just behind Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment.

Working Title’s remarkable achievement is its consistency, an elusive quality in the film business. They make about five films a year and keep on scoring at the box office.

Their business works because it harnesses the power of Hollywood. It does not try to replicate or compete with US distribution. It relies upon it. At the same time, they have made the most of the distance from Los Angeles. They have maintained autonomy, an appetite for artistic talent and a wariness of blockbuster values. In short, they owe their success to a sound business model and a gift for comedy. That, in itself, is an unusual combination in the film business: common sense and a sense of humour.

Philanthropy and finance

Hank Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, is said to be giving the bulk of the $800 million he earned at Goldman Sachs to charity. He has said he loves his children too much to leave them all his money. Sandy Weill, the former Citigroup banker, pledged his $1 billion fortune to good causes last year. Britain’s richest are not flattered by the comparison — philanthropy is a big money business over there.

james.harding@thetimes.co.uk

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