A use for GEC's money
their meeting their only obvious point of agreement with the board was a common disappointment with the share price, which has been going nowhere for years. They would like to see more of the money paid out, as dividends or for acquisitions, GEC directors protest that good companies in the electrical business are as expensive as they ever were. True, but in GEC's other business — money — the prices have come down. Look at Quilter Goodison, which was the Stock Exchange chairman's family firm of brokers before it was sold to the French bank Paribas. Now Paribas is sell- ing it on at a loss which I think mist run to eight figures. Look what GEC could now buy for its £1,400 million. It would just about cover the Trustee Savings Banks, which would bring in another cash stock- pile. Or it would buy the Royal Bank of Scotland and Kleinwort Benson too. I dare say that just at the moment it would buy most of the London stock market, with the money market thrown in. Like the mer- chant bankers of old, the Weinstock dynas- ty could become merchants by courtesy and bankers by practice. Maybe the other GEC will now show the way.
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