With the pounds 1

With the pounds 1.8bn takeover of Fisons by Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, the creation of Glaxo Wellcome put two pharmaceuticals deals into the top five of the year. Glaxo spoke of the need to cut bloated research and development costs, streamline management and pack a bigger punch. Following the takeover, Glaxo became the world's biggest drug company, but its market share only edged ahead to a still pretty unimpressive 5 per cent or so.Fisons put up a doughty defence under Stuart Wallis, the former Bowater (now Rexam) executive parachuted in to sort out the sick man of the drugs sector. With conglomerates apparently consigned to the dustbin of history, it was not difficult to see that asset stripping and accounting magic would no longer be the driver of the urge to merge - at least not in public.Instead, industrial logic was to be the new mantra of the politically correct City, with pharmaceuticals, financial services and the privatised water and electricity utilities picked out as ripe for rationalisation, reform and rejuvenation.And thus it was. Just 23 days into the new year, the record-breaking pounds 9.1bn bid for Wellcome by its rival Glaxo was a giveaway that 1995 was going to be a vintage year.Unlike the freewheeling 1980s, however, the motivation behind the big deals has changed in the more puritan 1990s.

Around pounds 950m of the money that changed hands is estimated to have stuck to the sticky fingers of merchant banks, lawyers, stockbrokers and public relations people, making it easily the best year ever for City advisers. The omens were propitious from the start, as companies surviving the recession rushed to spend the liquidity built up during the recovery - even if the stock market gave little encouragement, ending 1994 below where it had started. A provisional 1995 estimate from the magazine Acquisitions Monthly puts the last peak of pounds 47.2bn in 1989 into the shade and pitches last year's pounds 24.8bn into outer darkness. Fire kills gorillas Philadelphia - Smoke that spread through a primate house after a fire broke out at the nation's oldest zoo early on Sunday killed 23 rare gorillas, orang-utans, gibbons and lemurs. The primates, all endangered species, died apparently of smoke inhalation Ten others were treated for smoke exposure AP. City hopes of a bumper 1995 for big deals were realised with a vengeance, as British companies chalked up pounds 70bn worth of takeovers and mergers by late December. A US defence official said last week that thousands of people have been forced to attend mass executions in the North in an apparent effort to nip potential dissent in the bud AP. It was not clear if the statement foreshadowed a policy shift or an impending purge of potential opponents in the communist state as it faces possible famine this winter.

Kim slams `traitors' Seoul - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il delivered a blistering attack on economic reformists and ideological revisionists yesterday, calling them "traitors" who are jeopardising the country. One refugee who fled before the blockade said he passed 30 fresh corpses in his block alone on his way out of town AP. Several reports have accused the military of trying to hide something, perhaps the scale of the casualties. Police suspected that yesterday's raid was aimed at pushing ANC supporters out of the area.However, the brutal modus operandi of the killers have also raised suspicions that a so-called "third force" alliance of Inkatha extremists and right- wing security officials may be responsible for the bloodshed.. 300 Chechens die Moscow - Confirming suspicions of heavy casualties, the Russian commander in Chechnya said yesterday that nearly 300 civilians had been killed during more than a week of heavy fighting in the breakaway republic's second- largest city Russian troops have kept Gudermes sealed off since Saturday. The blockade has aroused the suspicions of even the pro-government Russian media.