But there needed to be a fresh overhaul of the management and we

But there needed to be a fresh overhaul of the management and we would be supportive of what has happened rather than discouraged by it. So far he [Mr Cockburn] is doing all the right things."Mr Cockburn will become chairman of WH Smith Retail while the company seeks a replacement for Mr Bamford. He said he was keen to move closer to the main high street business, which has 400 stores, and that the search for a new managing director for the business was "well advanced".Mr Bamford, 43, joined WH Smith in 1987 and has been running the main retail business for the past three years He was appointed to the main board in late 1995. He was paid pounds 118,000 last year and employed on a two-year rolling contract. He will receive compensation though the company declined to reveal details yesterday.Mr Bamford's exit is the latest in a series of boardroom departures from the retail group as it attempts to shrug off its reputation as a slumbering underachiever.He follows the former chief executive, Sir Malcolm Field, who left last year and Peter Troughton, the former head of WH Smith Retail, who left with pounds 400,000 compensation. David Roberts, the former head of WH Smith Business Supplies, was made redundant following the sale of the Niceday business last year.

He received pounds 505,000 in compensation.Others who have left include Philip Smith, a member of the founding Smith family who was a non-executive director, and John Napier, the former finance director who retired at the age of 59 last year when Keith Hammil, the former finance director of the Forte group, was brought in.Two other non-executive directors have stepped down while Simon Burke, the former head of Virgin Our-Price, left last year to return to the Virgin empire.WH Smith also announced yesterday it was hiving off its retail concessions operation from the WH Smith retail division into a separate business. It will have its own managing director.It has 100 outlets in railway stations and airports and generates sales of pounds 120m.A spokesman said: "It has been a Cinderella business. But it is a jewel that should be buffed up."WH Smith already has a successful business in the US operating stores in railways and airports. It has recently opened at outlet in Singapore and is looking at opening another in the new Hong Kong Airport.In addition, the group is transferring the logistics and distribution arm of WH Smith Retail into a separate business to be run by Richard Handover, who runs the WH Smith News wholesale business.. Alliance & Leicester bowed to public pressure yesterday and extended the deadline by four days for members to return forms allowing investors to choose to sell their shares immediately or keep them.

The building society's initial time limit for the return of share allocation forms ran out yesterday in order to keep to a tight schedule which sees their first shares being traded on 21 April. Yesterday the society admitted that many forms had reached members later than planned. The 2.3 million forms posted last month gave members the option to sell their shares on the flotation date via an auction conducted by Cazenove. But thousands of members complained as the clock ran out this week that they had not received forms, had been unable to get through on A&L's flotation hotline or had been met with "busy" fax machines.A&L responded yesterday by extending the time for forms to be returned until 15 April. It said it was "extending its opening hours for enquiries to 8am - 8pm Mondays to Fridays, and the Flotation Information Office will continue to be open 9am - midday on Saturdays.

The number of staff answering telephones and responding to mail has also been increased."An A&L spokesman yesterday said that a "very encouraging" 92 per cent of the allocation forms had already been sent back by members.The spokesman also pointed out that of the four big building societies demutualising this year, "we started the process last and are finishing it first".Halifax, for instance, has 8.5 million potential shareholders and declared its intention to convert more than 18 months ago. It will be sending out its first share allocation forms in 10 days' time. Shares in Halifax start dealing in early June.A&L blamed the delay in members receiving forms on a combination of "the Easter break and the high volume of similar mailings at the same time".The society said that members who were never shareholders before were keen to find out what was involved, and that A&L had received "a number of questions about the flotations of the Halifax and Woolwich, as well as its own."This year's crowded schedule for flotations has already caused the Post Office problems, which can only guarantee to deliver 98.8 per cent of mail posted.. Shares in Zeneca, the UK's third-largest drugs group, jumped yesterday on renewed speculation that Roche of Switzerland was about to launch a bid worth up to pounds 21bn. The shares, which ended 35p up at pounds 18.51 after being as much as 45.5p higher at one stage, were further boosted by news that Zeneca had beaten off a US patent challenge mounted against its Nolvadex breast cancer drug, the group's fifth best-selling product.

The bid rumour, the latest in a long series, emerged in a report in a Swiss newspaper which suggested that an offer worth pounds 21 to pounds 22 a share would be launched by Roche early next week. Cash, a weekly financial publication, claimed the two companies were in talks and the Basle-based Roche planned to sell off Zeneca's agrochemicals and specialty chemicals operations, keeping only the drugs business. Neither company would comment yesterday. A representative for Roche said: "We've heard the rumours before and we didn't comment then and we are not commenting now."The Swiss company has substantial cash resources and is thought to be interested in making acquisitions, but analysts played down the latest twist to what has become a long-running saga. James Dodwell, a pharmaceuticals watcher at Barclays de Zoete Wedd, said the two companies would fit together reasonably well. Roche had a lot of hospital products, while Zeneca's portfolio was strong in drugs targeted at GPs. Zeneca also had a strong franchise in cancer treatments, which Roche lacked, he suggested.But he said: "Zeneca won't go freely.