The house building sector has been hit hard by the recession but, according to Steve Morrish, there are still good opportunities for niche operators, such as his company, Morrish Builders.

In many ways, Frontier's evolution from clumsy striver to turnaround (and takeover) prospect reflects the difficulties faced by old midsize companies in an industry dominated by national titans and lean niche operators.

Even a niche operator such as Scott Dunn, which offers chalets at the very top end of the market and has little availability left for the whole season, says the best chance of getting a chalet is for departures on February 26 and March 4 and 18.

Then along came niche operators like M.C.I., which initially used radio-microwave relays to let big business customers bypass A.T.& T.'s pricey long-distance network.

This will take the form of a small number of very large global players and a large number of very small niche operators - niche in terms of both market and geographical coverage.

Though most agencies provide a broader range of service offering, at the two extremes are the traditional providers and the niche operators.

In BrownCo, E*Trade said, it would be buying a niche operator with 200,000 accounts whose owners place 28,000 trades a day and, more important, have average balances more than four times as large as E*Trade's customers.

Tesco recently reported that pie sales were up 222pc year-on-year, but despite the reach of supermarkets and national brands, the pie market is still highly fragmented with low barriers to entry attracting plenty of small niche operators.