Boots in the saddle
I AM not sure that I want the National Westminster Bank to be more like Boots the Chemist. The hosts of Midian are prowling round NatWest, and Lord Blyth, who runs Boots, is joining the board and is tipped to take over as chairman. Whenever I go into one of his shops I am on the losing end of a game of hide and seek. Where can he have hidden the soap and the Alka- Seltzer? Under healthcare, no; under femi- nine hygiene, presumably not; getting
warmer, getting colder . . . That elusive bar of soap is somewhere on the far side of the catfood, the greetings cards and the ready- made sandwiches — something for lunch as well as something for the weekend, for Boots has diversified. No doubt the banks will too. They and the building societies and insurers and pension managers are all itching to get into one another's businesses. I can picture myself wandering round and round my local branch, past the investment counter (`wealtheare), and finally locating credit under financial hygiene. NatWest has had enough expensive distractions already, as its figures next week will remind us, and I would see its best future in doing what it does best: being a strong commercial bank with a superlative franchise. (`Returns in this business', says Martin Taylor of Bar- clays, 'are moving away from capital towards franchises.') From that point of view, perhaps NatWest's next chairman ought to be a banker.
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