This is a direct result of the boom in City mergers and takeovers according to

This is a direct result of the boom in City mergers and takeovers, according to Nic Miles of Financial Dynamics, a City consultancy: "City PR firms have been showing strong growth for some years. Most consultancies with City operations have seen the City side grow by over 15 per cent for the last four years."Jane Ageros, chief spokeswoman for Abbey National, who is soon to move to the investment bank Merrill Lynch, said: "People are starting to realise PR consultants can be as important as merchant banks in corporate deals... PR is becoming more of a discipline. It used to be just mouthpieces, now they're a key part of the process.". Wellington Underwriting, one of the largest Lloyd's of London underwriting agents, announced a landmark deal yesterday when it bought Premium Underwriting, one of the first new-style corporate vehicles to be authorised by the insurance market, for pounds 34.9m. While consolidation among Lloyd's underwriters has been going on for many months, this is the first time one of the original corporate "names" has been snapped up. Corporate vehicles such as Premium differ from traditional investors in the Lloyd's insurance market because their liabilities are limited and the risks are spread across a variety of syndicates."As one of the major agencies we're buying one of the investment trusts.

That hasn't been done before," said Julian Avery, managing director of Wellington.The two groups announced they were in talks last month and the offer upon which they have agreed represents a 37.2 per cent premium over the middle market price of Premium's shares on 15 January, the day before the discussions were formally announced.Under the terms of the deal, Premium shareholders will receive 125 new Wellington shares and pounds 25.20 in cash for every 100 Premium ordinary shares. Holders of 100 Premium convertible shares will receive 118 new Wellington shares and pounds 23.80 in cash.Mr Avery said the deal made financial sense as it would enhance earnings per share and increase net assets."But, most particularly, it will enable us to grow the amount of capacity that we support on our own syndicates in a very effective way," he added.The conventional way to increase capacity is to raise funds on the market, such as a rights issue. But Mr Avery said this was dilutive as it would take three years for the additional underwriting flows to be accounted for.By buying an existing operation Wellington would receive underwriting returns from 1994 onwards, Mr Avery said. He thought other deals may follow this one.Wellington is managing agent for more than pounds 600m of capacity which is spread across several syndicates covering areas such as property, motor and marine and non-marine insurance.Its capacity has fallen from the extremely profitable years of 1993 and 1994 when it exceeded pounds 750m. Competition has continued to reduce its capacity although Wellington expects its results for 1996 to benefit from the lower incidence of large insurance claims.Premium underwrites through seven underwriting subsidiaries which are all corporate members at Lloyd's.Archibald Walker, chairman of Premium, said: "The offers from Wellington give our shareholders both a very satisfactory return on their investment and the opportunity to participate for the future in one of the leading specialist Lloyd's insurance groups.". Associated Nursing Services is to revise its accounts for the two years to 1996 following rulings by the Financial Reporting Review Panel on the treatment of sale and leaseback deals and joint venture companies. The rulings, the first based on the FRS5 accounting standard introduced in 1994, are expected to affect many companies in the nursing home, retailing and property industries. The immediate impact on ANS will be to reduce earnings per share, which sent the price to a new low for 1997 of 136p, down 5.5p.Daniel Francis, finance director of Nursing Homes Properties, which carried out sale and leaseback deals with ANS, said: "If this ruling is made to stick it will have severe implications across all companies and all sales and leasebacks."Although ANS's earnings per share will be reduced as a result of the rulings, the panel's decisions do not affect pre-tax profits for 1995 and 1996, which will not have to be restated.The most important of the two rulings is on sale and leaseback transactions.

ANS must put back on to its own books homes it sold and leased back from Nursing Home Properties, raising ANS's gearing.Dr Narinder Singh Dhandsa, chief executive of ANS, said the borrowing to develop the homes was non-recourse, so ANS was not liable for it, "but in theory we are now borrowing it".Only two of ANS's 40 homes were financed in this way, and there were much bigger implications for some others in the industry, said Dr Dhandsa.He said: "It's a grey area. We have had two or three firms of accountants look at this and Nursing Homes Properties has had Deloittes look. They gave clearance as well." But he believed it was "not worth the hassle" of arguing with the panel.The other ruling was on joint ventures, under which ANS constructed nursing homes and sold them to companies owned 50:50 by itself and a financial institution such as BZW.ANS would take credit for half the profit on the transaction. The panel has ruled that in future the joint venture must be treated as a quasi- subsidiary. This does not affect the cash received by ANS or its pre- tax profits, but does hit net profits and earnings per share.. The bitterly fought pounds 500m battle for Clyde Petroleum, which closes at lunchtime today, looked to be swinging Gulf Canada's way yesterday after the bidder announced control over 42.5 per cent of the oil explorer's shares The deadline for acceptances is 1pm today. Gulf said yesterday it had received acceptances in respect of 45.3 million shares, representing just under 11 per cent of Clyde's equity.

In addition it now owns 29.9 per cent, the maximum allowed under Takeover Panel rules. A further 1.46 per cent of shares have been pledged to Gulf, but their acceptance is not yet valid. Today's final count will hinge on the decision of 19.5 per cent-shareholder Schroders, which is understood to have favoured supporting Clyde'smanagement led by chief executive Roy Franklin, but has kept its own counsel.Clyde's shares closed 1p lower at 116.5p, below Gulf's final offer of 120p, as the market gave up hope of intervention from a white knight. Despite claims from Clyde that the company was worth much more than Gulf's bid, the shares never rose higher than 123p throughout the 60-day bid timetable.The battle for Clyde has been acrimonious with both sides using the relative subjectivity of oil company valuation to produce wildly differing price tags.Clyde's fate has been decided by a small handful of shareholders. Only four - Schroders, PDFM (which sold out), Norwich Union and Capital Group of the US - held more than 50 per cent of the shares between them.. British Land and Great Universal Stores confirmed speculation they are discussing a joint venture into which GUS would inject its pounds 900m property portfolio that John Ritblat's property company would manage The news sent shares in both companies higher. Analysts welcomed the move, saying GUS's property assets had been under- exploited and pointing to the potential of an off-balance sheet joint venture to free cash for better-yielding projects. The deal is further evidence that new chairman Lord Wolfson is addressing every aspect of Britain's leading mail-order group. Soon after he took control of GUS at the end of last year, he launched a pounds 1bn bid for Experian, one of America's largest business information groups.