A BITTER business battle between an Irish born son of a carpenter and a well groomed titled gent in control of his daddy's business . . . The prize: a Pounds 3.9 billion sterling company. The Irish lad wins.
The plot is so cliched it could have been cogged from a Jeffrey Archer novel. But the story that has unfolded over the past three months is not fiction.
Gerry Robinson, a self made millionaire from Dunfanaghy, Co Donegal, who heads the British company Granada, this week won control of the Forte Hotel Group. His greatest business victory - in a career that has had many - came at the expense of the Forte chairman, Sir Rocco Forte, after a fierce Pounds 3.9 billion hostile takeover battle.
Although the takeover struggle was waged by an army of financial advisers, bankers, and public relations experts, it was won in the main by Robinson.
His easy going personality, and wit endeared him to many in the City of London, most of whom knew he could also be ruthless if necessary.
But more importantly faith in his business acumen persuaded most of the large institutional investors to sell their shares in Forte whose poor performance left it vulnerable to a bid - to Granada. As the manager of one large pension trust fund succinctly explained: "I'm with Gerry. He's made me a lot of money over the years."
Robinson now controls a vast company that owns Granada Television, London Weekend Television, a high street electrical chain, Budget Travel, a motorway catering business and a hotel chain with more than 61,000 bedrooms which includes the Shelbourne in Dublin.
The Meridien group, which includes the Shelbourne, is to be sold, but the fate of Dublin's grand old hotel is not clear. During the battle for control of Forte, in an interview with The Irish Times, Robinson was asked if he would sell the Shelbourne. "Definitely not. It has the best pint of Guinness in Dublin."
While keeping shareholders happy Robinson (47), has also managed to build his own personal fortune during a 30 year career in business. He is estimated to be worth at least Pounds 5 million but retains a down to earth manner.
Robinson and his younger brother were the ninth and 10th children in the family. His parents had watched most of their elder children leave to find work, and eventually they took their two young sons to Britain.
Though he left almost 40 years ago and his accent has little or no trace of Irishness, it is clear that Robinson's "home" is still Donegal. He visits Ireland eight or nine times each year, and usually - spends several - weeks at his holiday cottage in Donegal every summer.
At 18 he joined the Lesney toy car factory in east London becoming chief management accountant, before quitting in 1974 having been persuaded to Join the motor dealers Lex by the lure of a company car.
He joined Grand Metropolitan in 1980 and seven years later led a Pounds 163 million management buy out of its catering division. The new company, Compass, has earned Robinson an estimated Pounds 5 million personally.
Robinson went to Granada, then a jaded family run company, in 1991. Before his arrival Granada made Pounds 57 million a year. The 1995 figures, released as the bid for Forte was launched, showed a pre tax profit of Pounds 351 million.
Robins on turned the company around by strict cost cutting, and removing whole players of management, which prompted a now infamous letter from comedian John Cleese. Cleese, incensed at the nature of the restructuring, wrote to Robinson saying: "F... off out of it you ignorant upstart caterer". The two men later patched things up over lunch, and are now said to be on good terms.
Despite the success of the Forte bid, Robinson has no time to rest on his laurels. The parts of Forte that he wants to keep must be integrated with Granada and he has promised investors that he will improve the profits of those divisions by Pounds 100 million a year. The bid has also left Granada with a Pounds 3.5 billion debt.
With the huge debt and profit targets to meet, the upstart caterer is facing a busy year. However City analysts have great confidence in Robinson's ability and the enlarged Granada should be a success - so long as he doesn't follow John Cleese's Fawlty Towers style of hotel management.