29 JULY 2000, Page 28

From boom to blow-out

I WAS the first to point out that the British economy was overeating. The great gas- trodome boom, so I warned, would lead to inflation and would end (appropriately) in a blow-out, and when the owners of the Ivy and Caprice sold out for £15 million, I thought that they had got their timing right. So they had, except that they were paid in Belgo shares, which have since lost two- thirds of their value. Now other restaurant groups are coming out with sour results and have share prices like unsuccessful souffles. All cannot win at this game but more and more players are trying. They are relaunch- ing the City as a licensed theme park, and now the rising tide of chardonnay has over- whelmed what I knew as the National Dis- count Company.