Forte vs Savoy
LORD Forte takes issue with the Savoy Hotel directors over their claim (City and Suburban, September 7) that Trusthouse Forte had shown itself a willing buyer of Savoy shares at or above the market price. He repudiates this. He tells me: 'At the moment, large blocks of high-voting "B" shares are held by two registered charities, one of which is the Savoy Educational Trust. We decided in January of this year to make a limited offer for the Educational Trust's strategic holding of 244,315 "B" shares. Our offer was £100 per share, then the so-called market price, for shares amounting to just under 2 per cent of the total Savoy votes, or £30 per share for all the "B" shares held by the Educational Trust. Acceptance of this offer, together with our present holding, would have given us complete control of the company. So, far from declaring ourselves a willing buyer at or above the market price, we were offering very considerably below the mar- ket price, although, even so, a very high offer indeed.' The Savoy shares are a narrow market, and even the low-voting `A' shares yield no more than 1 per cent. Lord Forte has said before, and says now, that the prices are ridiculously high: 'When we finally acquire control, the price of the "B" shares will, or course, plummet.'
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