There is going to be little weeping and gnashing of teeth when Tony O'Reilly and Peter Goulandris take Fitzwilton private. Fitzwilton, as it is currently constructed, is inappropriate for a public company and will be better used as a private investment vehicle for the O'Reilly-Goulandris clan.

As an industrial holding company, Fitzwilton never really hacked it (and that's an understatement), with too much chopping and changing in strategy.

Buy into British cash and carries and then get out, buy into British motor dealers and then get out, buy into Novum and then get out, buy into Renicks and for some reason hold on. Where's the strategy? Mix all those with the recent concentration on Wellworth and the Waterford Wedgwood investment and it's difficult to see much or should it be any consistency in investment policy.

Contrast the performance of Fitzwilton shares with other industrial holding companies like IWP and DCC, which have shown a more focused approach with IWP concentrating on unexciting but highly profitable household products and cosmetics and DCC on healthcare, computer services and food distribution.

These sort of industrial holding companies may not be the darlings of the stock market, but they have performed well for investors in recent years, and DCC shares in particular have come good in the past year and a half after a pretty dismal three years following the 1994 flotation when the shares spent a considerable period well below the 250p flotation price.

DCC reports end-March results next Monday and pre-tax profits of £35.7 million and EPS of 33.5p have been pencilled in by company broker Davy.

Any DCC acquisitions are likely to be in the computer services and healthcare divisions, with surplus cash from the Irish and British food and energy operations being used to fund acquisitions.