Conjuring up value

Which do you prefer, dull or shiny; boring or exciting; plain or sexy? No need even to reply. Besides, whatever you might protest, academics, psychologists and City folk know the real answer. Hence much effort goes into presenting dull as shiny and so on - even to the extent of clocking up £35m-worth of expenses in the case I'm going to write about (well, it's easy to see it as other people's money anyway). At least, that's the up-front cost of trying to turn plain into sexy at Cookson (CKSN), a conglomerate of a chemicals and engineering group with a long but chequered history.

visible-status-Subscription-Only story-url-Features_Bearbull_27112012.xml