How long is it worth hanging around for in the hopes that the boss will quit?
If you're Mike Hussey, a little more than two years might have done the trick.
Francis Salway's exit from the head of Land Securities three years after the chairman Alison Carnwath gave him six months to sort the property company out is hard to portray as a delayed-reaction ousting. On his watch, Land Secs has fared well during a sticky patch for commercial property.
But it is quite revealing that Salway's replacement is Robert Noel, boss of its all-important London portfolio which includes the bustling One New Change shopping district by St Paul's. It is this role that Hussey gave up in 2009 after a three-way demerger of Land Secs was abandoned that would have given him his own train set.
Hussey has since said he had no designs on Salway's job because of his preference to do deals, not administration.
There have been plenty of those at his new venture, Almacantar.
If Hussey can succeed in persuading Camden Council to let him turn the area around Centrepoint from an eyesore into a beauty spot, it will emphasise he is no loss to the boardroom.
