Talk of a possible takeover bid from NatWest 2p firmer at 657p pushed Standard up 5p to 623p to value the bank at

Talk of a possible takeover bid from NatWest, 2p firmer at 657p, pushed Standard up 5p to 623p to value the bank at slightly more than pounds 6bn BankAmerica was also tipped a possible bidder. Volume trading in Forte - which looks set to lose its independence - was again heavy with more than 13 million changing hands.The Savoy group, which will almost certainly be put into play with a Granada victory, closed 3p better at pounds 11.33p The price has now improved more than 200p in a fortnight. A spokesman for Gehe yesterday declined to comment on the German company's intentions, but said "we are thinking about a number of projects".Yesterday's share price movements resulted in the value of Unichem's bid terms falling to slightly less than 415p per Lloyds share - a 1.3 per cent discount to the market price.Some dealers said, however, that any move by Gehe, owner of the AAH pharmaceutical wholesaling business, would not happen until after Unichem produced its formal offer document.Meanwhile, the curtain comes down today on the epic battle between Granada, up 2p to 696p, and Forte, off 3p to 373p. Unichem, however, slipped 7.5p to 253p as the rumour that Gehe of Germany may mount a rival bid intensified.Institutional investors have been heavy buyers of Lloyds shares since the bid was launched. Mercury Asset Management has bought 1.9 million Lloyds shares in nine separate transactions at prices ranging from 373p to 402p.Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, advisers to Gehe, are said to have approached Samuel Montagu, advisers to Lloyds, for the same information that has been provided to Unichem. Scant regard was paid to the latest gross domestic product figures, showing an expected 0.4 per cent rise in the fourth quarter in 1995 - the slowest rate of growth for almost three years.More than 685 million shares went through the books, spread across a high number of trades - in excess of 44,000 at the final count.Lloyds Chemists, which shot-up on last week's agreed bid from Unichem, advanced a further 11p to 420p.

In the past, when large companies in Germany have downsized, any labour shed has been picked up by smaller ones. That is not happening this time .So the structural problem is in part a generational problem. The brilliant companies created or revived in the 1950s and 1960s are now middle-aged, and they are not being replaced, or rather not at an adequate pace. Creating the new industries takes an element of discomfort, even fear. Things like those growth figures or the plight of Daimler-Benz supply this But it takes time too.. Fresh records were set yesterday - but only just, as share prices came off the boil in late afternoon dealing. The FT-SE 100 share index, which spurted 15.5 points at the opening bell, closed 5.8 higher at an all-time high of 3,754.2.

Leading equities were given a flying start by Friday night's 60 point surge on Wall Street, and confirmation that Orange, the mobile phone network owned by British Aerospace and Hutchison Telecom, will float on the market in March. Orange is likely to be valued at more than pounds 2.5bn, and gain automatic entry to the FT-SE 100 index BAe shares climbed 12p to 888p. Vodafone, a chief rival to Orange and a Footsie constituent, gained 5p to 231.5p. The continued rumbling of takeover speculation also helped to keep the market in positive territory. It is equally that the companies founded by the post-war generation tend to be in manufacturing, and face the same squeeze on costs as their larger cousins. Our own experience shows how the key generator of jobs is the private sector service industries: tiny companies thinking of new services to sell both at home and abroad.

It is not just a problem of new company creation, though that is a large part of it.It is not just a problem of the lack of growth in self-employment, which is exceptionally low by UK standards. The problem is not just that foreigners do not watch German films; Germans do not watch them either, and half the films made in Germany are never shown to a paying audience. It is Germany's failure to develop exports in this sort of "soft" industry which accounts for the fact that it has the second largest deficit (after Japan) on trade in intellectual property.The other area of weakness is entrepreneurship. Another is higher education, which takes up to six years to lift students to the level which the British university system does in three.More serious, because it is growing so fast, is the situation in the entertainment industries. One is the areas in which, for social or linguistic reasons, Germany has historically found difficult to be competitive. An obvious example is tourism, with foreigners reluctant to spend their holidays in Germany.

Take finance: the explosive growth of the German banks abroad, buying top UK merchant banks like Kleinwort and Morgan Grenfell, shows a willingness and ability to play out from the domestic base and use home-generated money to push their way into the global marketplace It is very impressive.The weaknesses come in two main areas. Of course Germany can develop new service industries for the domestic market. Its service sector is smaller than that of the UK, France or Italy, but it is not so different from that of other European economies.In services which are not internationally traded, such as retailing, the quality of output - in terms of the level of convenience to the customer and the hours at which service is available - is significantly lower than that of most other developed nations.There are other examples of inefficiency, such as the cost of package holidays or of telecommunications, where again Germany's service industries have failed to move with the times.But in those services which are internationally traded, it is harder to see inefficiencies. The downsizing and refocusing of the Daimler-Benz growth obviously represents one side of the shift.