TSB's sleeping partners
ONE horse which is past the post already is the Trustee Savings Banks, and its under- writers can count their winnings. I was saying a month ago that the issue did not need underwriting, since if only one share were sold, the lucky applicant would find he owned the whole bank. The underwri- ters, I said, could secure their £12 million in commission without turning over in bed. We have now witnessed the comical spectacle of investment managers scramb- ling to buy the shares of the Big Four banks, for fear that they will not be able to buy many TSB shares, and will therefore become under-invested in the banking sector. The Big Four's natural response to this unnatural popularity and stock shor- tage would be a sequence of colossal rights issues — as National Westminster, raising £714 million in May, was perhaps the first to spot. As for TSB's underwriters, they will not even need to be woken up.
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