Moyne's a Guinness
THESE are testing times for Lord Moyne, the author and banker. The Swedish police keep turning up to ask him questions about Trustor, a misleadingly named investment company — he became chairman this year and now there is an £80 million hole in the accounts. This has rather spoiled the launch of his Requiem for a Family Business — the business being Guinness, where he was a director for 32 years. Lord Boyd, his cousin, boardroom colleague and fellow-member of the beerage, gave it a cousinly review in The Spectator. Nothing in this book dispels my impression that the family directors let the business go downhill, then hired a crook to put it right, and then never trou- bled to find out what he was doing. Led by an alcoholic chairman, they were content to draw their fees and dividends until the crook was unmasked and they hurried to disclaim him. Now at long last we have the report from the Department of Trade and Industry, Its inspectors briefly notice Lord Moyne as the only director who wondered why Guinness was handing $100 million to the devious Ivan Boesky in New York. He did not, the inspectors tell us, take the mat- ter further. As so often happens, Guinness ceased to be a family business but the fami- ly were the last to notice.
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