Greg Hutchings has taken an awful lot of flak for the lavish lifestyle he enjoyed as boss of Tomkins before he was rumbled.

Hutchings walked the plank after it emerged that his wife and housekeeper were on the Tomkins payroll, he travelled around by private plane and Rolls-Royce and enjoyed the use of swanky company apartments.

Shareholders in Kerry Group have some reason to be thankful for Hutchings' style of management. Tomkins paid Kerry £92 million sterling (#159.41 million) for six Spillers flour mills two years ago, before being forced by the Mergers and Monopolies Commission to sell most of them.

The result of this particular stroke by Denis Brosnan was a bumper price for Kerry for its unwanted flour mills and a £40 million sterling loss for Tomkins on the two deals.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that David Herro - who bought and sold 3 per cent of Fyffes a few years ago - has started a shareholders' revolt and asked Tomkins non-executive directors why they didn't know about Greg Hutchings' corporate excesses. If they didn't know, they should have and should resign, says Herro.

Hard to quibble with that logic - fat fees for non-executive directors also carry some responsibilities to shareholders.