But the Vedanta board worry about what happens when the two companies expand into new markets. They could be in competition with each other."The man behind Sual, Russia's second-largest aluminium group, is one of the country's richest men, Victor Vekselberg. He kept a low profile among the "oligarchs" until last year when he pulled off two ground-breaking deals with foreign investors. He brought the Fleming family in as shareholders in Sual and TNK, the oil group that he partly owned, agreed a multibillion-pound joint venture with BP.Earlier this year, Mr Vekselberg hit the headlines when he bought the world's largest private collection of Faberg?mperial Easter Eggs for an estimated $100m..

The departure of the highly rated Mr Gilbertson may dent confidence further, though the company has moved to bolster the board with the appointment last month of Jean-Pierre Rodier, the former chairman and chief executive of Pechiney, as a non-executive director.Mr Gilbertson was a major draw to investors when Vedanta was looking to float in London. Sual is also gearing up for a London listing and it is thought that Sual wants him to provide a similar role fronting its flotation. Mr Gilbertson has already been advising Sual for several months on an informal basis. One report suggested that a board position at Sual could be worth as much as £50m to Mr Gilbertson, who forged the BHP Billiton merger.One industry source said: "The Vedanta board meeting could well end up with him [Mr Gilbertson] leaving. Already on a multibillion-pound remuneration package at Vedanta, Mr Gilbertson is keen to also take on a board position at Sual, which promises to be even more lucrative.Vedanta shares have not fared well since floating at the end of last year. Brian Gilbertson, the chairman of Vedanta and one of the biggest names in the mining industry, could be ousted from the metals company at a board meeting today over his involvement with another mining group. It is understood that board members will tell him that he must choose between his position at the London-listed Indian company and an offer to head a Russian mining business.Mr Gilbertson will argue that the activities of Vedanta and Russia's Sual do not overlap. Gareth Hughes, R3's president, said: "Should rates rise further, we could see consumer spending plummet - and consumer insolvencies rise massively."Meanwhile, fears about the cost of raw materials among the UK export community have escalated and have hit export confidence levels, according to a survey for DHL.

More than half of manufacturing exporters were worried about rising costs, the highest level in the survey's 12-year history.. Paradoxically, the town with the highest failure rate was Peterborough in East Anglia, where businesses were more than five times as likely to go the wall as the average.R3 measured the number of failures as a proportion of solvent companies and found almost 5 per cent of firms in Peterborough failed compared with less than one in 100 across the UK. On a sectoral basis, R3 said there had been a massive rise in insolvencies among business-to-business service companies, mirroring the collapse of the dot boom four years ago.Insolvencies among retailers were low but R3 warned this sector could be at risk if the consumer credit boom that has protected it comes to an end. Businesses in the North are more likely to go bust than their southern counterparts, according to a report out today that echoes the UK's traditional geographical divide. Nine out of the 10 towns in mainland Britain with the highest company failure rates were in the North or Midlands, a survey by R3, the Association of Business Recovery Professionals, showed.Across England and Wales, six of the 10 least failure-prone locations were in the South, according to a survey of all companies failures in the 18 months to June last year. "At that level Barchester and Cygnet will have real critical mass," he said.The deal comes amid growing speculation that the healthcare sector is about to go through a process of significant consolidation.