CITY AND SUBURBAN
Sir Nicholas's ten bright years end with the barometer falling
CHRISTOPHER FILD ES
Alean and ambitious Doctor of Phi- losophy learned in the lore of ormolu barometers is an odd fish to find in the warm, churning pool of the Stock Ex- change. It is to Sir Nicholas Goodison's credit that, ten years after he was chosen as the Exchange's chairman, he still seems an unlikely member. (Every now and again, the other members notice.) His was an unforeseen election. His affable predeces- sor, ten months in office and set for a steady term, had fallen dead. Sir Nicholas's claim was to have headed the Exchange's think-tank committee, and — though I was able to back him at attractive odds — it proved to be the qualification needed. It is harsh but true to say that, if you want to see what Sir Nicholas has done right at the Exchange, you need only look at Lloyd's. His time in the think-tank had convinced him that the Exchange must evolve, as fast as possible, from a club to a business. He began (where Lloyd's finished up) by strengthening the organisation and sys- tems. He brought in administrators who, if they were not much liked, had the power of instilling terror. Thus reinforced, he could exert discipline without the need (which Lloyd's were induced to feel) of a special, private, distracting, time- devouring Act of Parliament. Before he was chairman, the Stock Exchange posted its disciplinary notices on its own walls, frightened, on legal advice, of publishing them any futher. Today the Exchange's sanctions reach beyond its own mem- bership, and have been known to amount to a public execution. With its limitations, it is as good an example as we are likely to see of a market which protects its custom- ers and regulates its members in accord- ance with its responsibilities. The City's burgeoning Self-Regulatory Organisations are casting envious eyes on the Exchange's best men. Nonetheless, as Sir Nicholas's rule ends its first decade, the authority and the territory of his empire find themselves under threat.
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