Knock, knock
STANLEY Kalms calls Woolworth's stock an inferior-quality mishmash. The manage- ment, he says, has sold 60 previous sites, and is now wandering in the high street in search of a credible retailing strategy.
Dixons, the company Mr Kalms built up, is bidding £1,600 million for Woolworth, and he proposes to justify the price by trans- forming the shops and running them bet- ter. James Gulliver says that Guinness has been buying businesses apparently at ran- dom, and has still to show that it can manage these businesses, let alone Distil- lers. Argyll, the company Mr Gulliver built up, is bidding £2,500 million for Distillers, whose shareholders he wishes to persuade not to accept Guinness's rival bid. As from this week, these two chairmen have to look over their shoulders at the censors. The Takeover Panel has taken fright at what it calls denigratory advertising, or knock- ing copy, and banned it. Observe that it is the advertising that the Panel has banned, not the denigration. Mr Gulliver is still free to write, as he has, to Distillers' sharehol- ders. Mr Kalms is free to give his views on Woolworth to the news agencies, as he has. What they may no longer do is put their criticism into advertisements. The Panel's friends protest that knocking copy had been giving a bad impression of the City. So does hypocrisy.
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