FINANCE AND INVESTMENT
By NIC%IOLAS DAVENPORT —and that I.S.H.R.A. will actually make a loss of over a million on the re-sale. This is hardly an encouragement for the public to jump in. It is surely significant that so many of the great names in the steel industry have not yet bought back their old plants and that some have no intention of doing so. Alto- gether I.S.H.R.A. had over £240 millions of steel securities to re-sell. There has been so much capital re-organisation that it is difficult to estimate the equity proportion of the capital but if half the total was originally fixed interest, then Sir John has already dis- posed of nearly half the equity. On a production basis he has unscrambled less
than that, but I suggest that as soon as he has privately sold another company or two, bringing the total sales to over half the former equity of the industry, he should regard honour as satisfied and not attempt another public issue until the political risk can be re-assessed on a surer basis. After all, his Agency is a "Holding" one as well and the Labour Party majority is becoming less and less bent on nationalisation on the old model.
The Lion and the Receiver I notice that the restoration of private enterprise has become so complete that the Government has handed State-financed British Lion over to a Receiver. Is that to teach Mr. Harold Wilson a lesson? Or what?
Previous page
