. . . Roy v. The Rest
'SO what's young Howard's answer?' He keeps thinking up regulations. He's got a thing called the K Factor, which is the limit on how much the companies can put up their prices to pay for their capital spend- ing, on filters for spiders and so on. But if they try to pay for it by selling off their spare assets he's going to clamp down on that, and he's keeping golden shares in the new companies to stop the French taking them over, and he's dug out that cross old retired director from Wales and made him 01' Man River the Water-Bailiff.' Tied hand and foot, eh? Does that sound the sort of thing you'd rush to buy an explod- ing share in, even if you understood how it exploded?' Me neither, old boy. I suppose you can sell anything if you make it cheap enough, but are we so desperate to sell?' `Not half as desperate as we were when this first came up to the board. Remember? The prospect of £7 billion spread over two or three years — we just sat with our tongues hanging out and carried it unani- mously. Now we'd scarcely notice the difference."Well, is it too late to stop?' I don't think so. If this were any other company the board could say: we've now got the powers, they won't go bad if we don't use them right away, you can only sell your family business once so you ought to take your time and get it right. Then I'd float Roy and Thames on their own. Our best division, keen management, good record — you'd get a good price for that. Get people used to water shares, show they can be worth having. You'd even set off some real competition — public v. private, Roy v. The Rest.' And which of us is going to tell the Chairwoman that? And what does she do with young Howard?' Post him to the Brussels office, he looks just the type. Time for a Scotch?' Don't drown it.'
Previous page
