Skinflint's City Diary
Sir Denys Lowson still has not paid back his ill-gotten gains from the sale of the National Group of Unit Trusts to the Triumph Investment Group. Sir Denys is a rich man, though certainly not so rich as you might think from the E5 million he almost made in just two of the forty years he has been in the fiduciary finance field.
If the Watergate affair has taught us anything, it is the value of plea bargaining to the authorities. Does the same thing happen here? If it does, Sir Denys has little to worry about so long as he does not keep his promise to hand back the £5 million too readily. Admittedly the inland revenue have almost certainly assessed him to capital gains tax on the money he has had so far. However against this he will naturally set off as a capital loss the remaining £2 or £3 million that Tom Whyte of Triumph Investment Trust has so far failed to cough up to pay for the huge captive funds of the National Group. Tom Whyte and the Triumph Investment Group are almost on their backs and it is difficult to have to say that he has not come out of the National Group transaction unsullied. Sir Denys had no business slyly buying in the management shares for himself but this is no direct concern of Tom Whyte's. It is too late to say it because he has not got the money, but he should not have sheltered behind Sir Denys's grubby coat-tails but paid up the full amount (into escrow if necessary) like a man.
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