CITY DIARY

CHRISTOPHER FILDES

It will (I suppose) scarcely be argued that, now that takeover bids have so large a public fol- lowing, companies in bid situations have a duty as entertainers. AEI directors have more to worry about than the sound of the slow hand- clap from the terraces. But they announced their defence with a certain touch of drama. For the first time that I can remember, jour- nalists were advised to use the facilities of AEI House before the press conference; because during it they would be penned up in the pri- vate cinema with the door shut behind them, lest anyone should rush out, ostensibly for another purpose, and buy large chunks of AEI stock. Did the defence justify the drama? It must be a matter of opinion; this is a profit forecast, and what you think of a fore- cast depends on whose it is. Three names under- write this one: AEI, Barings and Beaching. AEI's forecasts are a devalued currency. Barings' are not—minds go back to their amply justified Courtauld's defence. And Beeching is the best name of all; but in a limited sense. Lord Beeching's appointment, though it would give the highest qualities of will and competence to making good the forecast, does not guarantee that the forecast is sound. Lord Beeching, I know, says that he has seen the figures and thinks they look right, but that is a properly cautious statement based on the necessarily limited knowledge of a man who works full-time for a company in another line of business.

Talking of Dr Beeching. I hope that ambi- tious AEI men are remembering to read Mr Fiennes's I Tried to Run a Railway, with its useful sketches of their prospective boss in action. 'The Great and Good Doctor said to me one day about someone coming new on to the Board: "The most difficult transition in industry is from management to direction" '- that one, it occurs to me, might strike home.

Last week I put Mr Clarke and his invisible exporters at the top of the wrong building: they live in St Alban's House, not Alderman- bury House. I can only suppose that something obscured the visibility.

Sprawled across the end of October, the Motor Show warns Londoners that from now until Christmas the town will be less and less habit- able: the cabs and restaurants pre-empted, public transport full, and the roads jammed: 'October,' wrote a Guardian nature-poet once, 'brings motor show: Makes the traffic cease to go.' For those taking part, it is an extremely expensive operation. It comes at a time of year when the buying of cars is reaching its seasonal low point. What is it for?

The answer is not the one you might expect. Those cheering figures—'on the first day of the motor show orders for umpteen million pounds' worth of British cars were announced'—give the idea of big buyers rushing excitedly through the doors at nine in the morning. 'Gosh, that's nice,' says the head of a hire-car company: 'Send me a couple of hundred.' But life isn't like that, and the big buyers—the fleet operators —will, not surprisingly, have been shown the new cars ,before you are. The figures have piled up for weeks, and are, anyhow, incom- plete—one major manufacturer doesn't issue them.

What the show does provide is a guaranteed audience of a million, which for mass-marketers is worth having almost at any price. And for the distributors it provides an unequalled test of public response. 'They come down to the stands,' says a Big Five sales director, 'and see the reaction, and they say "Christ, I don't think we've got enough of these."'

For the car-makers, this has obvious uses. But if, like the component-makers, you are not selling to the public at all, you may think that at f5,000-odd (the cost of a typical stand) it is barely worth taking part. It is, perhaps, one of those habits that is easier to form than to break: rivals would say 'X and Co, not here this year: must be something wrong there.' So you sit mournfully about on the upper floor, drinking neat tomato juice and re-telling that joke about Barbara Castle.

As for the date, it apparently can't be helped: other and less remunerative customers of Earls

Court have booked the more desirable dates on contracts that run for years into the future.

Robert Benson was the bank that Mr John Read joined, as a seventeen year old clerk, in 1939. By the time he reached the board in 1956, one of the first such appointments in a 'family' bank, it was Robert Benson, Lonsdale. Then came the merger that produced Klein- wort, Benson; and Mr Read moved on to the new board. Now, six years later, he has re- signed to start a financial company of his own, John Read and Associates.

He has had plenty to do with Kleinwort's biggest clients—witness his appointment last week as a director of the Rank Organisation— but what gave him most pleasure was the com- pany nursery. Merchant banks, some more than others, like to have a few small or middle- sized companies that they are bringing on to the stage when they can go public: usually they have an interest in the equity when that happens. But Mr Read thinks that helping the modest-scale company is an economic propo- sition.

For some clients, it will be a question of find- ing finance, either directly from John Read and Associates or indirectly—he can suggest differ- ent sources to meet different needs. Other clients will have a capital structure which has carried over from earlier days and which now impedes them: here, too, Mr Read can advise. But it is a watching brief over the financial side that, I think, appeals to him most. He speaks of a property company-1 knew them when they made a few thousand a year. The boss used to come over once a week for an hour and a half, and we'd sit and chat about the business and have a drink—it's a great help to have somebody outside to talk to. J watched that business grow.' It has grown: the latest pre- tax profit was in seven figures.

Off parade, golf, bridge and a recently arrived grandchild compete for Mr Read's time.

If Mr Basil de Ferranti has his way and we get a European computer industry, there is one thing I'd like it to do for me, and that is to keep an eye on Mr John H. Perry, Jr, of West Palm Beach.

Perry Publications owns twenty-five papers round and about Florida, one of which is the Palm Beach Daily News. On this paper it has a machine that reads typewritten English and records it on magnetic tape. The tape is fed into a computer, which then emits punched paper tape, which can operate a type-setting machine. No human hand between the reporter's, bash- ing away at his typewriter, and the made-up page, ready for printing.

So far, so science fiction. But what Mr Perry has now done is to set a computer the task of making up a page. He has started with a page which carries advertisements. The computer can be programmed to know which regular advertisers deserve the best treatment—depart- ment stores, liquor stores and grocers, says Mr Perry. No one has to decide on the layout of the page: just push the ads into the computer.

It has occurred to Mr Perry that you could do the same thing with a news page. You give the computer a number of ways in which the page can be laid out. You then give it an order of priority as between different kinds of news, different names—the Governor of Florida, for instance. outranking the Prime Minister of Great Britain—and different reporters. So all that has to happen is that all the reports are fed in. the computer scans them, and Bob's your uncle! —a -news page, and no editor needed.

There are two points that I want to make quite clear about this. One is that Mr Perry's idea is no far-fetched forecast: it is already under trial at his Palm Beach newspaper. The other point is that we editors must stick together, and anything Mr Ferranti can do to help us will be gratefully appreciated.

A friend, interested in the connection I have traced between the movement of the hemline and that of the Financial Times index, asks if I think the market is moving on to a new yield basis. I have advised him to take his profit.