Market report
CUSTOS
The equity market is dominated by takeover situations as never before. Unilever is negotiat- ing the terms of a takeover with Allied Breweries. The price of the latter has come back by 2s 6d this week to around the 23s mark as speculators begin to wonder whether the Unilever price will be particularly generous. They have also been a bit taken aback by the fact that Lazards, advisers to Unilever, sold a big block of Allied Breweries at the end of last week. Watney Mann, however, has moved into the takeover speculation zone. The talk is that BAT will bid for the group.
The hire purchase world is in a turmoil fol- lowing the £29 million bid for Bowmaker by First National Finance Corporation. Bowmaker looks certain to resist the bid. Lloyds Bank, with 25 per cent of the equity, hold the whip hand. One outcome could be a merger between Bowmaker and Lloyds & Scottish (another hire purchase company) in which Lloyds has a 50 per cent interest. There is also a chance that some of the odd cross shareholdings in the in- dustry will now be sorted out. Martins Bank and Westminster, for instance, each own a significant slice of the Mercantile Credit equity. Westminster Bank has merged with National Provincial, which has a 30 per cent stake in Astley as well as 100 per cent ownership of another finance company, North Central Finance. Martins Bank, of course, has been taken over by Barclays Bank, which has a big holding in United Dominions Trust.
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