Floundering pilot fish made EE the one that got away The recriminations start here. EE has canned immediate plans to float in London. The UK's biggest mobile operator, reportedly worth £10bn, is unlikely to join the FTSE 100 this year. It is a blow to the market and to banks that would have earned fees for distributing shares. How did it happen? According to one version of events, it was the result of a dour reception for EE's "pilot fish." These are executives and bankers that guide a corporate leviathan towards its initial public offering, just as real pilot fish swim ahead of a whale. Their job is to deliver an informal pitch to potential investors and assess likely demand for shares. Fund managers are hearing lots of such pitches at present. A plethora of companies is lining up to float. But EE was a bit special. Even the sale of a minimum free float of 25 per cent would have been worth a sizeable £2.5bn. However some investors thought the price expectations of the pilot fish were too high. EE's owners, Deutsche Telekom and Orange of France, were unwilling to compromise and have opted to keep all dividends for themselves. The main bone of contention was the position of EE in 4G services to which it was the UK's earliest entrant. Some fund managers imagine it will lose more market share to rivals than the owners have judged likely. At the oft-repeated but unconfirmed target valuation of £10bn, EE's shares would be worth about 6.5 times trailing earnings before nasties. That does not look exorbitant. Reluctant fund managers doubtless disagree. But the bum steers Royal Mail's bankers received from institutions have damaged the credibility of price setting for big IPOs. As EE fins off into the blue, the concerns will intensify. Sports Indirect Mike Ashley is keeping the market guessing. The business he founded, Sports Direct, has disposed of a 4.6 per cent stake in Debenhams, the purchase of which had been represented as a step towards an unspecified business tie-up between the two companies. The profit to Sports Direct at prevailing share prices would be about £4.5m. However the sportswear group remains exposed to a 6.6 per cent stake in the department store chain at current prices via an option agreement with an unnamed third party, probably an investment bank. It has meanwhile locked in a profit on a future share price rise by taking a premium payment from the counterparty. The option is currently "in the money" for the bank. That means the market price for Debenhams shares - about 83p - is less than the exercise price at which Sports Direct could be obliged to buy the stake or settle the difference in cash. But the option has a year to run before it can be triggered. Sports Direct says the deal is simply a way of remaining exposed to the shares at low cost. The group says it is as interested as ever in tie-ups. The option deal may encourage Debenhams to pursue these. However there is no disguising the fact that Mike Ashley has - for the moment - swapped a direct for an indirect stake in Debenhams. Sports Direct may have no exposure at all if the shares strengthen. Such complex public dealings in one quoted business by another, accompanied by nebulous talk of collaborations, create unhelpful uncertainty for independent investors. Steering Experian Conventional wisdom dictates that a chief executive should not step up to chairman as Experian's Don Roberts plans to do. Control can be a hard habit to break, as illustrated by parents who boss adult offspring around ("I don't care if you're a High Court judge, tidy your flipping room!"). A company that breaks the taboo has to explain why. The credit checker's apologia is bland. It stresses continuity and the preservation of a unique culture. The succession of Kim Jong-un to the leadership of North Korea could have been justified similarly. But the American is not a power-crazed dictator - or no more so than other FTSE 100 bosses. Instead he appears to be what Tony Blair claimed to be, but never was, "a pretty straight kinda guy." Mr Roberts led the 2006 flotation of Experian, a one-time component of Great Universal Stores. The shares have returned 136 per cent since. Prospects are healthy. Safeguards against groupthink - including a couple of extra non-executives - are elaborate. Experian should get away with its reshuffle if it does not splurge on pay. Current chairman Sir John Peace is stepping down, meanwhile. How will he fill his days now, with only Standard Chartered and Burberry to chair? Someone should buy him a dog to walk. Or golf clubs.