CITY AND SUBURBAN
Mr Bearish the broker gets an offer he can refuse
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
friend Mr Bearish the broker has had a bid for his firm. It is a generous bid, by the standards of past years, when stockbroking firms could only be sold to other stockbroking firms, if they could be sold at all. Now the banks and other buyers are in the market, the prices say as much, and most of Mr Bearish's partners want to grab the money and run. More exactly they want to grab now and run later, because the buyer knows that the firm is only as good as its people, and is holding them in Place with golden handcuffs. This worries Mr Bearish, and he opposes the bid. His partners impatiently say that they will never get another as good, and Mr Bearish replies that this is exactly his point. Do they (he asks) wish to spend the next five years working for bosses who have paid far too much for them and are finding this out? So the buyer is told that the partnership still cannot agree upon his offer, and at this he groans, and raises his bid, and my friend looks more Bearish than ever. Maybe he should have sold to Barclays, which, hav- ing agreed to buy a majority stake in our biggest stockjobbers, Wedd Durlacher, is not pleased to see some of Wedd's best people cross the road to the competition.
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