Eyewash Triple X
THE latest brew from Guinness is a drop of neat eyewash. This takes the form of a letter from Lord Iveagh, the chairman, explaining why Guinness has not done what it undertook to do when bidding for Distillers with the support of the Distillers board. He says that Guinness had no idea how badly run Distillers would turn out to be. That is an odd admission to make, just after buying a company by consent for £2,500 million. He might have noticed how Andreas Whittam Smith described that company, ten months ago, before the auction started: 'Distillers is one of the worst-run large companies in Britain. In its way it is a classic British failure.' On 11 September shareholders in general meet- ing will be able to question Lord Iveagh and Ernest Saunders — the boss, even if he finds the family Earl useful for signing embarrassing letters. The company's drinks will doubtless be on tap, but if shareholders will take this from their chair- man, they will swallow anything.
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