Skinflint's City Diary
The extent of the hold that the major US banks and institutional investors have on the largest corporations through street names or what we call nominee names has come to light through the investigations of two US Senate subcommittees. Apparently, "At least twenty-eight institutions manage investment portfolios in excess of $5,000 million each." Presumably this must mean that much of these holdings is on behalf of private investors but nonetheless it provides an indication of what would start to be uncovered if nominee holdings were banned in this country.
It is an open secret that some of our largest insurance companies and pension funds use more than one nominee name making it all but impossible even under the new rules proposed in the Companies Bill and then by the directors only to uncover the full extent of a holding. There is little reason to retain nominee names, as The Spectator has consistently maintained, except possibly for a degree of anonymity for the small private investor who does not want to be pestered on the strength of his apparent riches. by company promoters or undesirables who have examined the register.
But there can be no good reason whatsoever for a pension fund or insurance company to cloak the responsibility of its ownership or the extent of its holding behind a string_ of nominee names.
It's an ill wind...
The absurd decision to introduce a three-day week is taking its toll of employment and jeopardising many businesses. If one of the clever management schools had set up a 'business game' based on the hypothesis that some government had ordered a three-day week by edict and asked the students to identify the consequences of what might be expected to flow from the decision and to set out what they might decide, as potential managers, to do to lessen the damage to their companies, the scenario would be rejected as absurd and beyond the realms of imagination in either peace or war. Now that the fervid brain of the Prime Minister has in fact produced exactly this situation many odd stories are starting to emerge of those few people who stand to gain. For instance a plastic goods manufacturer of my acquaintance with a long order book has suffered for a year or slightly more from a perilously low supply of the polymers and other raw materials he uses. The primary producers are, as a continuous process industry, not subject to restricted working whereas most moulders have reduced their orders for the very reason that they are. The small men, like my friend, by working long hours for three days, using stand-by generators and generally making do, have, far from losing production due to the short week, stepped up output because of freer supply.
Pulling out
Thiokal Corporation, the Pennsylvania manufacturer of chemicals, plastics and snow vehicles was a hot stock market performer ten years ago. 'How I made $2,000,000
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