Now Fraser is looking at five core types of customer: classic career movers

Now Fraser is looking at five core types of customer: classic, career movers and label-lovers among women, and smart career and fashion-conscious men."The group's performance has been disastrous since it was spun off by the Fayed brothers from Harrods in 1994.Profits last year fell to pounds 14.3m from pounds 34.5m at flotation, and provisions of pounds 40-50m to cover the review will take Fraser into a first- ever full- year loss this time.Analysts also expect Christmas to have been sluggish, though trading picked up in the January sales.Mr Coleman was installed last April after the sacking of Andrew Jennings. Instead, the review has focused on outlets in less promising locations.New shops, however, of which four are planned by 1999, are likely to open under the House of Fraser name."It's not a question of names disappearing, but the bigger, better stores surviving," one market source said."The company's old buying policies were unfocused. However, market sources said that at least six of its 52 stores would close following a review by the new chief executive, John Coleman. The shake-up will hit smaller stores in particular, with Arnotts outlets in Scotland and Binns stores in the north of England thought to be on the hit list.However, the group is not understood to be planning a full-scale rebranding that might wipe out many of its 18 trading names.Many stores, such as Rackhams and Dingles, attract loyalty from local shoppers. The group would not comment ahead of its Christmas trading statement on Monday. House of Fraser, the troubled owner of the Army & Navy and Dickins & Jones department stores, will tomorrow announce around 1,000 job cuts as part of a sweeping store closure programme. Where competition was introduced, the fee varied and in some cases was waived.Investors have expressed concern that the new system could increase the cost of capital but corporate treasurers have reassured them that the cost will fall..

The CBI believes that the new system would encourage the corporate sector to use equity as a constructive source of long- term investment funding.If it is endorsed by the NAPF and ABI, it will head off the threat of a MMC reference for underwriting commissions since it would introduce the competition which the OFT is seeking.A survey of rights issues carried out by the OFT last year showed that less than 10 per cent had any element of competitive tendering for underwriting commissions and that in standard rights issues the underwriting fee was never less than 2 per cent and could be as high as 3 per cent. Any shares not accepted by existing investors would be available for outside investors and for existing investors who wanted more than their entitlement.The new system has been examined by lawyers, who believe it complies with both British and European Union legislation protecting pre-emption rights.The system is not intended to replace underwritten rights issues but to be available as an option to companies to raise money more efficiently and less expensively. Any investor who accepts the offering at or above the strike price would be allocated their pro-rate entitlement. This would protect small shareholders, who might wish to avoid the intricacies of the book building but might still want to participate in the fund raising.The number of shares being sold could be varied so that the amount being raised remains constant.

This would also allow for a deeply discounted rights issue.However, investors would be allowed to preserve their pre-emption rights by simply agreeing to accept new shares at the strike price for their entire holding. The Association of British Insurers has also softened its stance on the proposal.Under the new system, demand for a new equity issue would be established by a book-building process that assessed investor interest in new shares at different prices. "I expect to make a decision on a MMC reference in the first quarter of 1997."The OFT's intervention has prompted institutional investors to reconsider a new method of raising equity that has been drawn up by the CBI in consultation with the corporate sector, investors and the authorities.The new method, which would be offered alongside traditional underwritten rights issues, would remove fixed underwriting commissions but crucially would keep shareholders' pre-emption rights intact.The National Association of Pension Funds is thought to be close to endorsing the new system. John Bridgeman, Director-General of Fair Trading, has written to the big institutions warning them that if there is no progress in improving competition in underwriting he will make a reference by the end of March. In his letter, Mr Bridgeman says he has decided against an immediate reference "in view of the real but limited progress which has been made so far".However, he makes it clear that reform must be introduced swiftly "Recent developments are expected to continue," he warns. Institutional shareholders are preparing to embrace an innovative new method of raising equity to head off a reference of underwriting commissions to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Such was Chinese anxiety to avoid untoward interventions that it was considered worth sacrificing any appearance of open government.. It will prepare a raft of legislation on nationality issues, finances and other matters to be enacted when China takes control on 1 July.Meeting in the marble-encrusted Shenzhen Guest House, the members were shielded from the press and public.

But Chinese officials and Tung Chee-hwa, who will take over from Mr Patten, insisted that not only was it legal but that Britain's stubborn insistence on changing laws without Chinese approval had made it necessary to establish the body and fill "the legal vacuum". She went on to work for the Emperor Group, one of the colony's most controversial companies, run by Albert Yeung, a man who only escaped adding to his criminal record thanks to the mass amnesia of witnesses in a recent trial.The Governor, Chris Patten, has dismissed the Provisional Legislature as a "rather exotic debating society" with no legal standing in Hong Kong, which is why it has been forced to meet in Shenzhen. She is well remembered in Hong Kong for building her political career as the advocate of a ruthless line on Vietnamese boat people. Either China has the fastest printing presses in the world or the spontaneity of the process was in question.Mrs Fan won the vote, and bowed modestly.