Welcome, the chairman says, as BP starts its Campaign for Real Shareholders
Bpuy a share in British Petroleum (now called BP) and the chairman's thanks come with it. 'I am pleased to welcome you,' writes Peter Sutherland. 'Thank you for the confidence you have demonstrated in BP through your investment,' He sends you, not, as you might expect, a coffee-table pamphlet full of glossy pictures of tankers and drillingrigs, but a guide to what being a shareholder means. It is a model, Newcomers will learn what a dividend is, when to expect it, and how a company which accounts in US dollars pays its dividends in sterling. Advanced students can test their knowledge of record dates and Crest. Those with some odd shares left over will be introduced to ShareGift, which can sell them and pass the proceeds to the owner's chosen charity. I take it that BP has struck the first blow in a Campaign for Real Shareholders. Like real ale, they have been driven out by the financial equivalent of keg bitter, and corporate life is poorer and less diverse without them. Any chairman with any savvy (Mr Sutherland has plenty) would prefer them to ersatz shareholders — the stewards of other people's money who give themselves the airs of owners and would gang up to cut his throat for an extra sixpence. My friend Sir Topham Hatt, who (as I reported last week) is hitting back at them by forming the Association of Fat Controllers, will sign up for BP's campaign. Thanks, as he says, are a dividend, too: sometimes the only one.
Swiss roll-up
We haven't had a good new three-ring boondoggle for quite a while, so I welcome the World Information Summit, which promises to be a classic. At least 56 heads of government are booked into Geneva next month, with the usual full supporting cast of ministers, bag-carriers and freeloaders. What a boost for the lakeside economy! No wonder that the Swiss franc is so strong. All that remains is to decide what the great men will talk about. Their sherpas have spent the last week on reconnaissance in Geneva, talking about talks, but have got nowhere. It occurs to me that they might submit proposals for a virtual information summit, in which the participants would stay at home and send each other e-mails — but that, of course, would miss the whole point, or lack of point, of a boondoggle. This one has already reached the decision that matters, which is where and when to meet next: in 2005 in Tunisia. Order your camel now and bill it to your taxpayer.
King's ransom
The two tiers of Marks & Spencer broad acres where trousers hang idly on racks and busy basements full of food — have long told their own story. In the end, it got through to Justin King, who has built up M&S's 'Simply Food' stores by leaving out the trousers. Now, recruited to be chief executive of Sainsbury, he gets his reward — if reward it proves to be. Sainsbury has replaced M&S at the top of the supermarket watchers' worry list. These two national icons, one after the other, took their golden touch for granted and have struggled to regain it, though it must be a sign of M&S's progress that the headhunters are trawling through its labyrinthine corridors again. This season's reports show that the trousers are still giving trouble. Mr King and his successor should stick to the fishcakes.
The windy side
You might think that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport had enough to worry about — sight-lines at Covent Garden, the Murdoch family succession, bringing the Olympic Games to the East End of London — without legislating about investment clubs or gift schemes. As against that, you might be surprised at what passes for an investment club, or a gift, for that matter. Rules and regulators govern the promotion of investment, but schemes like Hearts or Women Empowering Women remain on the windy side of the law. They require you to give as much as £3,000 to your sponsor and empower you to ask eight other people to give £3,000 to you. If you think this sounds like a pyramid scheme or a chain letter, you are presumably a man, and therefore excluded, because of your inherent cynicism and greed — which is, of course, lucky for you. The Department's new Gambling Bill, out this week, will make schemes like this illegal, and leave their promoters to think of a new way of parting fools from their money. Women empowering women? 'Empowering' wouldn't be my word.
Moving target
Four months ago the Bank of England's Monetary Committee voted 8-1 to cut interest rates. A fortnight ago it voted 8-1 to put them back again, and this time Rachel Lomax was in the majority. Not before time, the committee was worried about our soaring debts and the soaring prices of our houses, which provide us with security — if that is the word we are looking for — but also (though not, of course, for minuting) by the Chancellor's imposition of a new inflation target: moving the goalposts, the Governor says. This one looks suspiciously easy to hit.
Not for profit
You can't say that I.K. Gricer didn't warn you. Two years ago Flying Scotsman steamed to market, and we were invited to subscribe £2,200,000 for shares in it. My railway correspondent set his signals at caution. The great locomotive, he said, had proved an expensive toy for its previous owners: 'Shares in steam traction do come on offer from time to time. Buy them, if you want to, for fun or free tickets or Christmas, but not to make money.' Now Flying Scotsman plc is losing money, the auditors say that its accounts do not give a true and fair view of its affairs, and its driving wheel, Tony Marchington, the largest shareholder, is bankrupt. The managing director says that Flying Scotsman may end up in North America, but it has been there before, and lost more money — a collector's trophy, but not an investment. The time has come, my correspondent recommends, for Flying Scotsman plc to join forces with Britain's most successful railway company, Hornby. Steam traction on 00-gauge track, using electricity to heat the water, has helped Hornby's share price to multiply tenfold. If this technology spreads to the main line, Flying Scotsman will be back.
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