Rum Collins
RUPERT Murdoch means to be our big- gest publisher of bosoms and Bibles. Holy Writ is the foundation of William Collins's publishing fortunes. Mr Murdoch, through News International, has for seven years been its largest shareholder, and now he is. bidding for the rest. Collins is resisting, and its chairman Ian Chapman is trying to marshal the support of his authors — except, I suppose, the best-selling Author of them all. Eric de Bellaigue, the pub- lishing specialist at CIBC Securities, won- ders why Mr Murdoch, having backed the Collins management for so long, should now have turned on it. I think the answer may be that the Collins management nowa- days is not the one Mr Murdoch was happy to support. George Craig, who was vice chairman, left at the end of last year for Harper and Row, the New York publisher jointly owned by Collins and News Inter- national, and has produced good results — better than Collins's. . . . Sonia Land, who was finance director, left in March to join a venture capital firm, but for the last few months has been working for Mr Murdoch. His bid values Collins at £293 million. Not enough, says Mr de Bellaigue, and so does the stock market, which, pushing Collins shares above the bid price, expects to see more, either from Mr Murdoch or from a competitor. There is obvious scope for closer integration with Harper and Row, and for tidying up the present structure left over from the Collins family — of voting and control. To preserve that, now, will need Authorial intervention. I am already impatient for Mr Murdoch's first integrated and illustrated Bible. I shall begin at the beginning, with the book of Genesis, and turn to page three.
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