The first battlefield being approached from both sides next week is the Council of Forte the

The first battlefield, being approached from both sides next week, is the Council of Forte, the trust that holds a controlling block of votes Mr Robinson wants them to remain neutral. Sir Rocco will not say what he will ask of them.Whichever way the council goes, the Takeover Panel will have the final say. During the last bid for Forte, in 1971, it decided that the council's heavily weighted trust shares would not count towards acceptance. But in that case both the Council and Forte's board agreed.If the council's trust shares are discounted, remaining shareholders suddenly become significant The largest is Mercury Asset Management with 12.5 per cent It also owns almost 15 per cent of Granada. The reasons it built up the two stakes are quite different, and not encouraging for Sir Rocco. Forte was bought because MAM thought the property portfolio attractively priced It invested in Granada because it believed in Mr Robinson.

Faced with a similar situation during the Granada bid for LWT two years ago, it sold.If successful, Granada says it will rejuvenate Forte's roadside restaurants, push the mid-market Meridien hotel brand and rationalise budget inns under the Posthouse and Travelodge names. It also plans to sell Lillywhites, the remaining Alpha stake, the Welcome Break motorway service stations and its stake in the Savoy Group. Among possible buyers for the service stations is the drinks group Whitbread.Profile, page 5. TIM MELVILLE-ROSS, a member of the Greenbury Committee on top pay, this weekend attacked the Stock Exchange's attempts to water down two of the committee's key recommendations. Mr Melville-Ross, who is head of the Institute of Directors, said he was deeply concerned about current moves to emasculate recommendations on the disclosure of directors' pension benefits and the rules governing directors' bonus schemes. "It's absolutely not what we intended," he said.

"And I would be surprised if what I am telling you would not be agreed by everyone on the committee."Mr Melville-Ross is the second Greenbury member to voice his concern publicly. On Thursday, Geoff Lindey, chairman of the National Association of Pension Funds' investment committee, said "powerful voices" were trying to block Greenbury."There is a very real threat here. They must not succeed," Mr Lindey told the association's autumn conference.Two recommendations are under threat: that companies should publish the true value of pension entitlements awarded to directors and that shareholders should be allowed to vote on directors' bonus plans that run over more than one year.As far as pension disclosure is concerned, as first revealed in the Independent on Sunday a fortnight ago, the Stock Exchange has put pressure on the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries to withdraw the formula it originally proposed and hold consultations that could lead to a formula that spreads disclosure of the true cost over several years.On bonus plans, the rule change proposed by the Stock Exchange would allow bonus plans of up to three years to escape a shareholder vote.The attempt to nobble Greenbury has been confirmed by several independent sources close to the events. The growing fight is expected to pit listed companies, which fear disclosure will lead to damaging headlines, against institutional investors, who stand to gain the most from companies revealing how much bosses get.. TAX CUTS are a racing certainty in next week's Budget. But industry fears that they will come at the expense of capital spending, and there are worries in the City that they will be justified by bogus spending cuts.

An expansion in the Private Finance Initiative, under which public investment projects are privately financed, is expected to camouflage an axeing of capital expenditure next year. This would be on top of the 7 per cent cut projected in the last Budget. Capital projects could be sliced by as much as pounds 2bn fears Douglas McWilliams of the Centre for Economics and Business Research. The roads programme would be the main victim, but further savings would be made in public transport investment and housing, hitting the troubled construction sector hard.Mr McWilliams also warned that a scaling back in the roads programme would eventually lead to huge congestion costs. These "could build up over time to about one and a half times that of a 1p cut in income tax".The City is concerned that Mr Clarke will announce unrealistic overall expenditure curbs.