Spiking Thorn
This puzzle picture of cash-rich com- panies may have a simple explanation. Perhaps all the money has piled up round Lord Weinstock at GEC, while everyone goes without. He knows how to exploit that advantage without having to spend the money. His tussle with Thorn EMI is a textbook instance. Thorn approached Brit- ish Aerospace offering to bid. Lord Wein- stock, wallet in hand, said that he was interested in bidding, too. That put paid to Thorn's approach. No one has bought Aerospace yet, but Thorn has gone off on the rebound and bought Inmos, the Gov- ernment's chip shop, and raised £136 mil- lion from reluctant shareholders — and the graph of its share-price looks like Beachy Head. Or it looks rather like the graph of Racal's share price after GEC had run Racal up in the auction for Decca. Lord Weinstock can keep one of the straightest faces in business, and tpay need to.
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