The company very nearly went bust in 1971 developing the original RB211 and Sir Ralph bet the ranch again when Rolls launched the

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The company very nearly went bust in 1971 developing the original RB211, and Sir Ralph bet the ranch again when Rolls launched the Trent engine two decades later. He soon realised that even the best companies cannot fly on one engine alone, moving swiftly to bring risk and revenue sharing partners on board to prevent a corporate crash.Rolls's expansion strategy has also been flawed. The takeover of NEI in 1989 was an unmitigated disaster while the jury is still out on the more recent acquisition of Vickers, a deal which left Rolls with a second-hand tank business that looks even more of a liability now the Greeks have decided not to buy the Challenger 2.Sir Ralph's prickly relationship with the City has hardly helped. A salesman to his boots, Sir Ralph was always most at home hobnobbing it with Middle East potentates but his social skills rather deserted him when it came to investors. Profit warnings are always a shock, but the one from Rolls in August 2000 really did come out of a clear blue sky.For all this, Sir Ralph is that rare animal, a British engineer who has successfully run a big quoted industrial company and kept it independent when others have either been gobbled up or lost the fight to the Japanese and the Americans. For that, he deserves his place in the corporate history books more than most.O'Neill's optimism Paul O'Neill, the US Treasury Secretary, is taking great delight in being proved "right" about the US economy.

When he first said there would be no US recession, no one believed him and his comments were widely seen as just another example of the political ineptitude that has come to characterise his reign at the US Treasury. To go out on a limb like that when it seemed obvious the economy was going down the pan was not just brave, it was ridiculous.Now everyone agrees with him. Even Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, was at it yesterday, telling the Senate Banking Committee that renewed US expansion was "well under way" The US economy didn't dip in the final quarter of last year In fact, it grew by 1.3 per cent. What's more, forecasts of 4 per cent growth for the first quarter of this year are starting to look more and more plausible.It seems to have been the recession that never was, and Mr O'Neill must deserve some credit for not believing in it in the first place.

Whether it will save his political skin is still, however, a moot point. In politics, it is much more important just not to be wrong than to be right, and Mr O'Neill is still widely regarded as something of a liability in Washington and beyond. We also have little idea at this stage quite how robust the US recovery really is. For many it doesn't feel like a recovery at all, and what uplift there is may owe as much to restocking after inventories had been run down to perilously low levels as anything else.Business investment and spending remains low, indebtedness, both corporate and personal, is still high and stock market sentiment is all over the place.

Indeed, after the veritable collapse in corporate earnings seen over the last year, it's hard to believe equity prices can be poised for a strong rebound, however much you believe in the potency of New Economy productivity gains. At close quarters, Mr O'Neill's boundless optimism is both infectious and endearing, but it's going to be a while yet before he can claim to have been proved wholly right in his predictions. For those who have forgotten it, another of Mr O'Neill's predictions in the immediate aftermath of 11 September was that the Dow Jones would be at record levels again within 18 months. Only 1,200 points to go.Publicis/Bcom3 Any attempt to combine French, Japanese and American culture within the same company would seem doomed to failure, but that's precisely what Publicis is doing by acquiring the privately owned Bcom3. On the face of it, this seems a reasonable enough deal which continues the process of consolidation the worldwide advertising industry has been undergoing for some years now.Publicis and Bcom33 are number six and seventh respectively in the world league of advertising companies. Their merger will propel Publicis into the number four position, though it will remain a long way behind the big three of Omnicom, WPP and Interpublic, both in terms of billings and market capitalisation. What's more, Publicis is buying at the bottom of the cycle, which means it must be getting a good price, right?Not necessarily, despite the 9 per cent surge in Publicis shares yesterday.