Money Makers
Bid for Power. By George Bull and Anthony Vice. (Eleck Books, 25s.) ALTHOUGH the business of making money occupies most people for most of their time, little is ever written about it. As one can see in these two excellent books, however, this is not because the subject is without interest. In Bid for Power George Bull and Anthony Vice tell the story of the successful and unsuccessful lake-over bids' which have been made in the last decade. How these take-overs were accomplished and what they have meant to British industry can now be put in sufficient perspective to show that much of the prejudice which they provoked at the time was unfounded. In most cases the superior direction of Messrs. Woolfson, Clore, Samuel, Fraser and others has put new life into old companies, making them serve the-public more efficiently. What hap- pened to the Savoy Hotel, how the empires of the Great Universal Stores and the House of Fraser grew, why an important British manufacturer of paper-making machinery did not fall into Ameri- can hands—these and other stories are told in a way which the general reader will find interesting and easy to follow, though in spite of the authors' invitation, in their final chapter, to 'do it yourself,' most readers will no doubt feel inclined to hold back.
Money at Work concerns them much more directly, however. This is a collection of essays by expert contributors on nearly all the ways in which the ordinary person can invest his money. It is ingenious to remind the investor that, if he is disillusioned with the Stock Exchange, he can put his money into silver, jewellery, furniture, pictures, glass, coins, wines or stamps. Even here, as most of the contributors are careful to point out, he may not make much money, but he will have a great deal more pleasure. This book is also useful because it runs'over some of the less well- known channels for orthodox investment, such as building societies and hire-purchase companies. The chapter which guides the plain man through life assurance and pension schemes is particularly
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