Business Winners

Stuart Rose

The chief executive of Arcadia (right) – the retail chain that owns Burton, Topshop and Miss Selfridge – stands to net an astonishing £16m from his share options after Baugur, an Icelandic shops group, said that it wanted to buy the company.

Luc Vandevelde The Belgian brought in as chairman of Marks & Spencer has convinced the City he has turned round its fortunes. The new Autograph and Per Una ranges have stemmed the decline in sales of women's fashion.

Gerald Corbet

The man who quit as chief executive of Railtrack last year was the comeback kid of 2001, hired to take charge of Woolworths, which was demerged from parent Kingfisher in August.

Mike O'Leary

The chief executive of Ireland's no-frills carrier Ryanair, netted £28m from the sale of some of his shareholding, and saw the market value of his company grow to surpass that of British Airways.

Wendy Mayall

The chief investment officer of the Unilever pension fund took the stand in the High Court as Unilever accused Mercury Asset Management of negligence in the way it managed the company's pension-fund money in the mid-Nineties. Mercury settled the case after the court appearances, paying Unilever over £60m.