Why do UK companies not put up a bigger fight against predators? 

Here’s a clue. Phil Bentley, the assertive chief executive of Mitie, will receive £50million if the takeover by private equity-owned OCS goes ahead.

Fans of Bentley, who plans to step down next spring, will argue he deserves his reward.

He can credibly claim to have turned the company around. When he took charge a decade ago, Mitie was in dire straits after a string of profit warnings, with a market value of just £800million. The offer yesterday comes with a price tag of more than £3billion.

A significant chunk of Bentley’s £50million payout comes because he put his money where his mouth is and bought around 13m shares out of his own pocket. 

He was awarded the rest through long-term performance incentive plans.

Still, it is not exactly an approved Burnhamite scenario even if some 50,000 full-time Mitie employees, who receive part of their annual bonuses in shares, will also have a slice of the bounty.

They are in line for a collective payment of £124million, an average of just under £2,500 apiece. Whether or not a £50million jackpot is justifiable, it is a big incentive to look kindly on a bid.

The takeover is a significant one for the country. It will affect 136,000 workers providing cleaning, security and maintenance services in buildings that include hospitals and prisons. 

That army of employees, many of them low-paid, will come under the umbrella of US private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice.

CD&R’s most high-profile deal in the UK to date was its debt-heavy purchase of Morrisons five years ago.

So far, the critics, including this writer, have been vindicated. The supermarket chain has been overtaken in the rankings by Aldi and Lidl. Its most recent figures show a hefty £381million loss and a £3billion debt pile. 

Perhaps the Mitie deal will be a success. But there is a broader question about the London market, which has become a predator’s paradise.

Firms including Segro are under siege, and the likes of Easyjet, Tate & Lyle, Rotork and Intertek have been picked off. The total value of recent bids adds up to nearly £70billion if they all go through.

Deals may look convincing on an individual basis but collectively this is eroding the UK stock market, where insufficient new companies are listing to make up for those that vanish.

The barbarians are no longer at the gate. The doors have been flung open and they have been welcomed inside.

Throwing a million youngsters on the scrapheap before their careers have begun is costing the country a staggering £47billion, according to a report today from the Commons’ Work and Pensions Committee.

MPs describe this situation, where so many school and university leavers are NEETs – not in education, employment or training – as a ‘travesty’.

Their report says there could be a £69billion boost to the economy if the NEET rate were reduced to 5 per cent from its current level of 13.5 per cent. 

Schools come in for some harsh criticism. Young people from the Tees Valley said work placements were being left entirely to pupils to arrange for themselves, and that they were given minimal careers advice.

But even the best education in the world won’t help if employers can’t afford to give kids jobs because the Government has priced them out with tax hikes, increases in the minimum wage and a battery of worker rights.

The select committee recommends cutting employer National Insurance contributions for all workers under 25.

The report also calls for an end to injustices in the benefit system that punish youngsters from families on benefits for trying to better their situation through study or apprenticeships. Cruel is the only word for that.

Former Health Secretary Alan Milburn is publishing a report into NEETs in the autumn and the hope is he will recommend dismantling the barriers making employers reluctant to hire.

Our new Prime Minister says he wants growth in every postcode. We already have more than 1.7m people unemployed and another 9m classified as economically inactive. Unless we want a new generation to join those ranks, Andy Burnham must make jobs for the young a top priority.