PETER TOM, the former chief executive of Aggregate Industries, and Vaughan McLeod, the boss of quarry group Ennstone,have been rivals for years.

Over a decade ago when Tom was at Aggregate he lost out to McLeod in a bidding war for Bruntcliffe quarries. Tom hit back by taking a 12% stake in Ennstone and then McLeod, in what some think a move too far, ran off with Tom’s wife, Jayne.

We’re told the affair didn’t last long but Tom, an ex-rugby player who chairs Leicester Tigers rugby club, has probably not quite forgotten.

Revenge may be within his reach, however. With the construction sector in freefall, Ennstone is on shaky ground and has become something of a soft target.

It received a mystery bid approach last month but who would buy anything in this market? Construction-focused investment vehicle Marwyn Materials, set up by Tom in June, might just have the inclination.

IT really is a sign of just how bad things are when you see hedge-fund managers willingly talking to the press.

Hedgies Darren Swayne and Alex Torrance left Oxburgh Partners at the end of August to launch their own fund, and to get some investment interest spoke to the hedge-fund mag Euro Hedge, which reported that the pair delivered “punchy returns” in recent years.

Well, sort of. Oxburgh runs three funds: Dowgate and Mako, which are both up for the year, and Abchurch, which is down 10%. So which fund did Swayne and Torrance work on? Er, Abchurch.

I KNOW we’re all supposed to take the Plus market seriously but sometimes it’s difficult. This has nothing to do with the platform, which we’re told is humming, but the types of firms it attracts. Consider a new one that’s about to make its Plus debut. It’s called Creative Financial Technologies, a name that nowadays hardly inspires confidence. There’s also the matter of director Johnny Hon. Hon chaired Betex where three employees were arrested in China last year over alleged involvement in illegal gambling.

A yacht to ride out any recession

CREDIT crunch? Imminent recession? Not for the Candy Brothers; they laugh in the face of world depression. And, what better way to do that than a, er, timely launch of Candyscape II.

Candyscape II is not just Nick and Christian’s new toy. Valued at around €90m (£70m), it is “a new breed of world-class super-yacht” where the sun loungers are sensitive to the position of the sun and move accordingly (I’m not making this up) and the main dining table can become a small stage complete with the necessary audio technology for when Madonna pops in for a sing-along.

But it would be foolish to think that the design duo, who have created some of the most expensive apartments in the world, are not, like the rest of us, watching the pennies.

They put their first yacht, Candyscape, up for sale at the Monaco Yacht Show for €14.9m last week. Any takers? I said, any takers?

DO designers at the porcelain maker

Royal Worcester have mystical powers? We wrote last week that the fine-china firm, which traces its roots back to 1751, has been forced to call in accountants KPMG to find a rescue buyer. But only weeks before this, Royal Worcester revealed a new range of comedy mugs for the autumn. According to the blurb on its website, Royal Worcester has teamed up with the parody brand Life is Crap to create this new series of a dozen fun mugs that help to raise a laugh “through those occasional lousy moments”. Like losing your job? Let’s hope so because, unless KPMG can find a keen buyer, life will be crap at Royal Worcester.

Action stations for Jazz pioneer

WHAT an accommodating lot they are over at Guardian Media Group. First the management gives Jazz FM founder Richard Wheatley £41m for his radio station in 2002. Three years later it closes it and Wheatley has now negotiated a three-year licence deal to relaunch a digital Jazz FM, starting tomorrow evening. The terms of the licence deal were not disclosed but I was told “no money changed hands. Guardian just said to Wheatley, We’re happy for you to get on with it”. The man with the golden touch.

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