He's not been the creative force behind it."Another analyst said: "He is a perfectly good guy and it's always difficult knowing who's done what. But my impression is that it is Vittorio who has turned it round."Some analysts believe Selfridges could become a takeover target as its stock market value of £387m is only fractionally higher than its freehold property assets of £383m.Mr Baillie said: "A property company or a financial buyer might have a go at it. You could say Tom Hunter should be looking at this, not House of Fraser."However, some analysts said Mr Williams might be better suited than Mr Radice for the roll-out of Selfridges' expansion programme under which the group is aiming to expand beyond its flagship store on London's Oxford Street and its two stores in Manchester.Selfridges is due to open a fourth store in Birmingham next year and has found a site in Glasgow. It is looking to open additional branches in Leeds, Bristol and Newcastle as well as developing the property behind its London store.Mr Williams joined Selfridges as finance director in 1991, after being a divisional manager at Freemans, the mail order group then owned by Sears.Yesterday he said: "We've known for a while that Vittorio was going to leave at some point. I already run the store design projects and have been going on buying trips As far as I'm concerned it's business as usual. We have a strong creative team here."There was speculation in the City yesterday that Mr Radice might be a possible future chief executive of M&S.

One analyst said: "You would have thought he would be a candidate at the highest level."Another added that Mr Radice was likely to have a wider brief than just home furnishings: "He could help with other things, like store lay-out. But having people around like him, George Davies and Yasmin Yusuf [head of design], increases the retail skills of the group substantially."Mr Radice revealed that talks with M&S started in earnest in September after Selfridges had opened a store in Manchester city centre on a site shared with M&S.Selfridges said a new finance director would be appointed "in due course" M&S shares closed 1.75p lower at 326.75p.. The Chancellor, Gordon Brown, faced fresh embarrassment over his Budget plans yesterday after the International Monetary Fund cast doubt on his forecasts for economic growth and the public finances. It praised the strong performance of the UK economy, which it said was due to sound economic policies, but added there were major uncertainties for the future.The IMF said the Government's forecast for GDP growth, on which the public finances are based, were higher than its own predictions. "The revenue projections underlying this fiscal outlook are more uncertain than in the past," it said "The additional uncertainty relates ... It was worried the current spending spree would have wider economic impacts, such as crowding out private spending and leading to greater inefficiencies in the public sector.Mr Brown said: "I welcome the acknowledgement from the IMF that, because of the tough decisions we have taken in the past, the UK remains better placed than others to withstand the impact of increased global uncertainty."The Treasury also drew support in its current pay dispute with the firefighters from the IMF's warning over wage demands.

It said: "There is a risk that public sector wage demands may intensify as public spending increases, and that spillover to the private sector, in a tight labour market, may be greater than in the past."Mr Brown added: "It is because we are determined to continue to deliver economic stability and value for money in public services, that we should not put our hard-won stability at risk by yielding to inflationary pay settlements that would ... damage the wider economy."In its annual report on the UK economy, the IMF also said the Bank of England's interest rate policy "struck the right balance". "If the global outlook is weaker than anticipated, a rate cut may be needed, but would have to be weighed against the risk of exacerbating economic imbalances, and the fact that fiscal policy has been loosened significantly," it said.. Troubled telecoms firm Cable & Wireless today announced a management shake–up at its loss–making Global division, but embattled boss Graham Wallace remained at the helm of the group. Three weeks ago, I wrote that Cable & Wireless showed every sign of turning into a corporate d?cle of Marconi-like proportions. Even as a wrote it, I thought it perhaps a little over the top. Things were bad and getting worse at C&W, but it did have the cushion of £2.2bn of net cash sitting in its balance sheet, so it had to be worth at least that to its shareholders.

That cash mountain is looking more like an illusion by the day. Previously unsuspected liabilities keep leaping out of the cupboard with a frequency that would do credit to the latest Scooby-Doo DVD.After the weekend's revelation that the group may be forced to ring-fence £1.5bn of its cash to meet a potential tax liability, there's only one real mystery left to solve. What on earth is Graham Wallace, the beleaguered chief executive, still doing sitting in the hot seat? All vestiges of credibility have now gone. The argument that he needs to be kept in place at least until a new chairman is found because he knows the business better than anyone else and can begin the necessary restructuring looks entirely hollow.It is now clear beyond doubt that the board has no adequate grip on the business, and indeed seems to have been guilty of serious lapses in disclosure. It beggars belief that the company could have thought it unnecessary to tell the stock market that it was bound to ring-fence £1.5bn of its cash if its debt lost investment grade rating. Even the City Editor of The Independent can see that this is a material fact, likely to be of more than passing interest to shareholders.