"Raising rates further at this time would seriously damage business confidence and could well push the recovery into reverse," Sally Low, its head of policy, said. But Graeme Leach, chief economist at the Institute of Directors, said: "We are not out of the woods yet. Under Dutch law, the vote at the meeting carries no legal obligation for the company.. Businesses breathed a sign of relief yesterday after the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee decided not to repeat August's unexpected decision to raise interest rates. Although the decision had been unanimously predicted in the City, a batch of upbeat data had triggered last-minute nerves that it would move again. Analysts are still split over whether the MPC will raise rates again this year to curb inflationary pressure from growth above trend, inflation above target, strong money growth and high energy prices.

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The British Chambers of Commerce welcomed the decision and urged the MPC to resist calls for another increase.

Centaurus, acting with the fellow hedge fund Paulson & Co, which is based in New York, called an extraordinary meeting yesterday for next month at Stork. Together, the two investors own 32.9 per cent of the voting rights in the company, which they say suffers from being a conglomerate of unrelated businesses. Stork, which is worth about €1bn (£680m) on the stock market, has operations ranging from supplying the aerospace industry, to manufacturing poultry processes machines.The hedge funds said: "Centaurus and Paulson believe it makes no sense to combine Aerospace, Food Systems and Technical Services under one arm."Stork's conglomerate nature has led to a lack of management focus and a share price discount, they said, and it should focus exclusively on aerospace.Stork said it had taken notice of the request for an EGM but was considering its reaction. Originally set at inflation minus 2 per cent, the controls were made more stringent in 2001 when a cap of inflation minus 6 per cent was established.Yell welcomed the news but maintained that all price controls should be dropped.. Centaurus Capital, a London-based hedge fund, has launched a shareholder campaign to try to force the Dutch engineering group Stork to break itself up. Yell also competes against Thomson and a host of regional players.As a result, the watchdog plans to loosen regulation of Yell, allowing the company to increase its prices in line with inflation. The price Yell charges advertisers to be included in the Yellow Pages has been controlled since 1996 when Yell was still part of BT.

It argued that Yell faces growing competition from the internet as well as BT, Yell's former parent, which has re-entered the directories market. The watchdog did, however, leave the door open to a potential easing of regulation as it made no mention of a need to lower prices in the directories market.Less than three months after its initial findings, the Competition Commission has decided that Yell does indeed operate in an increasingly competitive market. At that time, Diana Guy, who chaired the inquiry into the directories market, said: "We have found that competition is not working effectively." Yell shares fell as a result of the findings in June. At that stage, the Competition Commission's opinion was that with a market share of 75 per cent - five times that of its nearest competitor - Yell would continue to dominate the market despite the emerging internet-based competition. The Competition Commission has performed an about-face in the UK directories market after proposing an easing of price controls on Yell, owner of the ubiquitous Yellow Pages, from April 2008.