READERS concerned that the abrupt defenestration of Tim Whiston, the iSoft chief executive, after last Friday’s profit warning might impinge too harshly on his lifestyle can take comfort from the news that his termination package means that he will continue to enjoy his existing benefits.

Those benefits, piquantly, include private medical insurance. This means that he will not, for the next year at least, be thrown on the mercies of the NHS, nor yet on its catastrophic attempt to computerise patients’ health records, iSoft’s involvement in which is the reason for his departure.

For John Weston, the iSoft chairman, it was another day, another profit warning yesterday. He was dealing with Whiston while at the same time putting out a warning on behalf of Spirent, which the former BAE Systems boss also chairs.

At iSoft, his involvement cost him a third of a million quid as the value of his holding plunged. At Spirent, nearly all of his shares are above water, although his most recent purchase in February last year at 67p-plus doesn’t look so clever.

AEGIS staff were startled yesterday to find Vincent Bolloré among them. The French raider, who has been rebuffed in his attempt to gain seats on the board, had given warning that he would be at the annual meeting yesterday, but not at the St Martin’s Lane offices where several Aegis agencies have their home. As does Bolloré’s City PR agency.

Out to lunch

JOHN COLEMAN, the House of Fraser chief executive, was under fire at yesterday’s annual meeting from the Ladies Who Lunch over the closure of Dickins & Jones and Barkers. “Barkers was a very much-loved store in Kensington and there is no other store like that in the area. The nearest is Harrods or Harvey Nichols and not really the same,” said one.

Coleman wasted his time explaining that Barkers would lose money once the new White City shopping centre, where he is already negotiating for a site, opened in 2008. One lady shareholder responded: “The attractions of Kensington are quite different to White City. Kensington people are not going to go to White City.”

PING! A curious e-mail arrives. It is from an exporter in Kovel, Ukraine, which seeks my assistance to get around currency laws there that prevent small firms from setting up accounts in foreign currencies abroad. I get 8 per cent of any payments received from overseas clients. “We are very much aware of various scams going on all over,” it says. “At no time you will be required to pay or transfer funds that you have not received from our customers to us.”

Scam or genuine, do you think? I still go for the first.

Big deal, Ed

THE Treasury has been making a big deal of yesterday’s speech from Ed Balls on the City, in which he says that heavy Wall Street regulation would be a Bad Thing — I think we rather spotted that, Ed. It’s one of the reasons why Nasdaq, the New York exchange, is trying to buy London in the first place, as it happens.

But why is the Treasury bigging up the debut speech from a really very junior treasury minister? Balls, when he was there, was always seen as Gordon Brown’s minister on Earth, and a possible successor at No 11. But not his immediate successor, I am assured.

city.diary@thetimes.co.uk

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