Aerospace underwater.. .
NUCLEAR SUBMARINES are not my idea of a growth industry. I see them as an underwater answer to the hovercraft: some- thing very clever that the British could do brilliantly, if anybody wanted it, How lucky, then, for their builders, VSEL, to find themselves in the middle of an auction where the bidding has now reached £570 million. The opening bidder, British Aerospace, our biggest exporter, has turned amphibian. It says that since it makes missiles and aeroplanes, it is in the weapons-platform business, and would like to build platforms that float or sink. This is pure Synergese: merchant bankers' patter. On this argument B Ae would be diversify- ing into gun carriages and concrete emplacements. They would be no odder than some of its past diversifications into Rover cars, property development and a Dutch company which specialised in building airfields. This binge ended three years ago when B Ae found itself critically short of money. Its shareholders had to refinance it in a hurry, stumping up a patri- otic £432 million Now B Ae may ask them for another £535 million. It worries me when high-tech engineers develop a hunger for cash. The new model Rolls-Royce shows signs of this. The Mark I model died of it. B Ae has got it again. As my Bad Investment Guide says, when the profit and loss account is telling you one thing and the cash book is telling you another, the cash will be telling the truth.
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