t 9 # S Ukraine may not keep promise to close Chernobyl Uk rainia n President Leonid Kuchma warned his country would renege on its promise to dose the stricken Chernobyl nuclear by 2000 western countries provide sufficient financial aid. He also called on the west to back Ukraine’s eco- nomic and political Independence to ward off the threat posed by the resurgence of Russian national- ism. Page 24 Serbs loot UN base: Bosnian troops looted a UN base as Nato stood by to deploy the advance guard of an international force to police the Tingni« peace deal A UN spokesman said Bosnian soldiers fired machine-guns over the heads of Bangladeshi peace- keepers guarding the base in the Bihac enclave in north-west Bosnia. Karadzic holds Sarajevo fount , Page 2 Fuji Bank, the world’s third-largest commercial bank, expects to report a pre-tax loss of Y440hn E 4bn) for the year to next March, its first loss and largest ever by a Japanese lender Page 24; Quality gap widens, Page 8 Leeson remanded on Barings charges: Former Barings futures trader Nick Leeson was remanded in custody until Friday after appearing in a Singapore court to hear li charges relating to the collapse of the UK merchant hank. Page 2 Takeover speculation lifts London shares: __ Speculation of several FT-SE lOO Index : takmvpr hidu brined thp 20 NOV'S® 2* Source; Reuter . lOO index : talww er hide hri pad tho FT-SE H)0 close 2L5 Hour^mowameota . points at 3.6210 after it 31640 - had lost ground earlier in m q the week. The gain ramp 3,630 r-p --. n — — despite conthudng I I vl yn declines in the shares of 3,620 l-U||-l.-.fr power generators and I II. | I - distributors after snr- qcicA I I \ l prise hid referrals. Ova: Li U • the week the FT-SE 100 . O''-.. ; rose 14J points. On Wan 3,6D0 20 Novas’- Street the Dow Jones _ . - Industrial Average con- Sourc “ :RBUtar • tinned to post record highs after breaking through the 5,000-point level on Wednesday. Page 21; Editorial Comment, Page 10; Lex, Page 24; World stocks. Page 10 Kazakhstan pushes for oHpIprafine: Kazakhstan is stepping up attempts to break the deadlock over a pipeline .project which is preventing the Central Asian state from exploiting its massive ojjpnd gas reserves. Page 4 Sabtabwy may taka ovar Qlmt: Britain’s biggest fold retailer J Sainshury could he poised to take over US supermarket chain Giant Food, in which it holds a minority stake, following the death of the US company’s chairman and chief executive Israel Cohen. Page 7 $ Africa moves to cover bank kmaas The South African government will use pension funds lodged at the troubled African Bank to cover lasses at the bank of more than R200m ($55. fin). Page 4 IncBa aaaka mora for (atophona Kcanooas inHtw fe reopening bidding on half the 20 regional telephone services licences it Is offering because offere were too low. Page 3 Virgin expands financial services: The UK-based Virgin Group plans to extend its financial services telephone sales and enter a Joint venture with Australia's largest fife assurer. Page 6; Lex, Page 24 Fr ench film director L ouis Malta dies: French film director husband of American actress Candice Bergen, died at his home in Bev- erly Hills, California. Malle, who had bean suf- fering from cancer for his last film. Vanya on 42nd Street, last year. He was nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay in 1972, ixx Mur- mur the Heart {Souffle an Coeurl and fen- best director in 1981 for Atlantic City. qjmpsntes In tills bww Amec 7 QSrt FOod 7 Atlas Copco Bank of Tokyo Bankers Trust British Telecoms Dal-taW Kangyo Domino Printing First Choice Heydays Fun 8 Hokkaido Takushoku 8 Mayne Nksktese 8 Mitsubishi 1 Nintendo 8 Pancon Mining 8 Sakura 7 J Salisbury 8 Sanwa 24,8 Sumitomo 7 Thom Security For customer service and other general enquiries caifc Frankfurt ( 69 ) 15685150 Roh case may involve 24 business chiefs By John Burton fn Seoul At least 24 leaders of South Korea's biggest conglomerates may be indicted for allegedly giv- ing bribes to former President Roh Tae-woo, prosecutors said yesterday. The number of executives that could be prosecuted is far higher than expected by most ob se rve r s, who believed that an indictment of almost the entire Korean busi- ness elite might harm the nation's economic performance. The announcement came a week after Mr Roh was arrested for allegedly accepting Won239bn ($311ix0 in bribes from leading conglomerates, or chaebol, in return for government contracts and other state favours in his 1988-93 term. The government said yesterday it was also preparing special leg- islation to prosecute Mr Roh and Mr Chun Doo-hwan, his predeces- sor as president, far their alleged roles as army commanders in the 1980 military massacr e of at least 200 pro-democracy protesters in the city of Kwangju. President Kim Young-sam, the first civilian leader in three decades, had previously hesitated to indict Mr Roh and Mr Chun over the Kwangju massacre because political allies of the two farmer presidents form the maj- ority faction of the ruling party. The moves against the chaebol and the former military-backed presidents are seem as an attempt by Mr Kim to regain popular sup- port and distance himself from the bribery scandal that threat- ens his political future. Mr Kim is accused by opposi- tion parties of accepting large amounts of money from Mr Roh, a former political ally, for his 1992 election campaign. Chaebol that face possible bribery charges include the “big four” - Hyundai. Samsung. Daewoo and LG - which allegedly gave among the largest payments to Mr Rob. The other chaebol named by prosecutors are a roll call or Kor- ean industry, including Dong-ah. Lotte, Hanjin. Jinro, Ssangyong, Hypsung, Daelim, Kumho, H and, Dainong. Dongbu. Kia, Dongkuk Steel, Sambu, Kahap. Mi won. Hanbo, Doosan. Dongyang, and Poongsan. A final decision on which chae- bol to prosecute will be made early next month when formal charges are expected to be filed against Mr Roh. Tt is uncertain whether any of the chaebol lead- ers will be imprisoned if indicted. The prosecution of (he chaebol coincides with expected new mea- sures, such as strict anti-monop- oly and tax enforcement, to curb their expansion and cut domi- nant family ownership. Prosecutors are also investiga- ting state-run companies such as Pohang Iron and Steel, and finan- cial institutions, to determine whether they gave monev to Mr Rob. Juppe stands firm as national protest on ‘Black Friday’ brings travel chaos Challenge by strikers to French PM’s welfare plans ;C6T elf V SYNDiCAT P5A.TF.FGRV? By John Ridding In Paris Striking public sector workers took to the streets of French cities yesterday in a challenge to Mr Alain Juppe, prime minister; and his plans to reform the coun- try's stricken welfare system. Faced with national protests which halted most air and reD travel, caused chaos fra: commut- ers and international traffic, and closed schools and other public services, the conservative govern- ment insisted it would stand firm on the key welfare issue. “There is no alternative,” said Mr Jacques Barrot, the social affairs minister, referring to plans to eliminate the country's FFrtfflm (IMm) annual welfare deficit by 1997. However, Mr Barrot urged a dialogue with the trade unions to resolve the stand-aff His appeal appeared to he an attempt to defuse the protests which are set to continue next week with a joint call far a general strike on Tuesday by the communist-led CGT and Force Ouvrfere, another of France's main unio ns. Mr Juppe, who delayed a trip to Bordeaux yesterday to hold talks with President- Jacques CM-- * rac, has said he will cut France's '. budget deficit by enough for the country to qualify for European monetary union from 1999. The Gaullist premier has indi- cated that only mass street pro- tests could push him to revise his proposals, which include a new tax to pay off the welfare sys- tem’s accumulated debts of FFr250bn and measures to elimi- nate welfare and pensions Continued on Page 24 Strikes halt French public services. Page 2; The politics of public protest. Page 10 On the march: thousands of striking public sector workers protest in Bordeaux BT move to split chairman’s dual role is hailed By Alan Cane in London British Telecommunications has begun what it describes as a “sec- ond chapter” in its history as a private company by bringing in a new chief executive from ICL, the computer company. Mr Peter Bonfield, who takes up the new post, will work closely with Sir Ion Vallance. who remains chairman while shedding the role of chief execu- tive. This will be the first time since Sir Ian's appointment in 1987, that the company has split the two roles. Mr Bonfield, who has had a highly successful career in the computer industry, faces the challenge of improving BT's abil- ity to take advantage of new technologies. Many in the City, which applauded the announce- ment, hope that he may also be able to repair BT's relationship with the industry's regulator. Mr Michael Hepher, 51. group manag in g director, is leaving the company at his own request and Is likely to take up an appoint- ment in the financial sendees industry. Mr Bonfield, also 51, is the chairman and chief executive of ICL. which is owned by Fujitsu of Japan. He is widely regarded as the architect of ICL's recovery from near disaster in the early 1960s and has the reputation of being one of the UK's best man- agers. He will remain on the board of ICL as non-executive chairman until a full-time appointment is made, when he will take the role of deputy chairman. His move was made with the approval of Fqjitsu, Japan's largest computer manufacturer. Mr Bonfidd’s appointment was greeted enthusiastically by inves- tors and by the City of London: Continued on Page 24 Telecoms giant rings the changes. Page 11 Continuity as ICL names chief, Page 7 Lex, Page 24 Murdoch heads satellite TV bid to broadcast Italian soccer By Andrew Hffi m Milan and Raymond Snoddy in London Mr Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-born television mag- nate, is interested in buying part of the broadcasting rights for Italian soccer, in what could he the first ever rights auction by the co unt r y 's football league. Mr s«m nhishnhn, rfitaf execu- tive of BSkyB, the British satel- lite broadcaster, has written to the league on Mr Murdoch’s behalf to say BSkyB and News Corporation, Mr Murdoch’s hold- ing company, are interested in tnWng part in such an auction. BSkyB, whos e com mercial suc- cess been driven by its own- ership of exclusive rights to live coverage of the British Premier- ship, believes that rights to Ital- ian football could be the driving force behind pay television in Italy - a market -that is pooriy developed in the country so far. BSkyB is looking at the possi- bility of using Italian football rights as the core of a number of channels that could be offered directly to Italian viewers. The company already has the satellite capacity to launch its own Italian service, although joint ventures with Italian part- ners have not been ruled out The existing rights to transmit Italian soccer matches In Italy belong to RAI, the Italian state broadcaster, and Telepifi, the pay-television group, under a three-year contract, which expires in June nest year. The contract also gives than the right to sell on matches far broadcast outside Italy. Ral and TalepiO have already tabled an offer for the new contract of L282bn a year. Other groups interested in bid- ding for all or part of the broad- casting rights include Mr Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest Group, the rival Telemontecari o- VIdeom usic broadcaster of Mr Vittorio Cecchi Gori, and a federation of regional Italian television stations. The league's executive commit- tee met yesterday and decided the contract could be broken down into 12 parts, which could be sold separately or together. A proposal has to be completed by December 15 and should be put to an assembly of league members in mid-February. It is not yet clear when an auction would take place. For a taste of how the most substantial private investors are treated, put £10,000 in The Mercury International Portfolio STOCK MARKET INDICES FT-SE 100; 3£MJD H21.5) Ytaw : ass FT-SE Eixtrtraek 100 1,45097 ffflyBQ FT-SE -A ASShara - 1,77282 905%) Nikkei - 18# 023 (-2AA1) ktew Yortc Ckwe Dow Jane* Ind AM BJJ4R84 ft723) S&PCwnpaoH* — OOJfT 1*1.57) ■ LOUDON MONEY 3-mo tnwtwik — Ufte tong gHt fut„ Dec 109ii (DboIOS’u} « US CLOSMQ RATES Federal Funds Sfttt (B%) 3-m Trees EBttte YkJ _ 5471% (&£G2%) long Band 108J2 (10B) YWd *244* (04772%) ■ NORTH SEA Brant 15-day (Jan) OE. 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FTIPurss BRITAIN'S LEADING INVESTMENT HOUSE .—V DUI» nwtl aim CM* HMJSlBtt Cyprus CSI.ICt Czech tap KBS* Dsraraat DKrl 7.0tt Eon* EESJtt OM EKr ZOXft mm FnWISi France FFrtiXG Qermrqr EMUS Greece far - mn QhtJHft Bern** Wonee* nwjOBO; taraal NST-Stt LSOME Jfan Y3H Jwran JDi JQ Kom Won 300B KuwW ItauSIS *UmaO: Ifata tmaeft Hmvy OR1* ta«m FWtt PMptfma tao SR PdImi B Ponuoai pitamg BkZ» tanr QfftLOft SAabta tartl-OB; 9800; taw* tap SMOtBoiih taka nts» itatand BM» TWta MM** itatar umux oSim UMtiso mam emi Paflea wiamBiafla aiwtanB K rir^- — rri vfES UMTTEP 1995 Mo 32.842 Week No 47 u — bm ■ igas - hubb - mubbfdbt • STDCKBOUi » mw ai ■ MBi TOM ' 1 tos aiis aEs ■ tokto T1» pricr nl Ufa ind Uir m mr Iron mm wpiljwM-flil up mdur Mgr wnw ■ Uual b, tb- Mn«) Frol hi.ni Matin. U Infan) b, ifa b)r a) Mm pmnem li p n m i, Omnm in mfaun —Twwf-M “I -i‘*» faM IlMUfannu n wy. la fa icM n l ra ni n m i,, cma mm »« m» «mr lo y™ ibfa rtfar Crop pmlan^ n J 1«1 »*l pHn lc nrrtiw fail drulb. (Jm wn* M in. - •. .. . m _ • - ■ . y ... . FINANCIAL TIMES WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25/NOVEMBER 26 1995 NEWS: EUROPE Magistrates to question ex-premier over Fininvest cash and Socialists Berlusconi denies $6m link to Craxi By Robert Graham in Rome Mr Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian prime minister, was yesterday s umm oned for questioning by Milan magis- trates over allegations his Fin- invest business empire illicitly channelled LlObn ($6. 18 m) to Mr Bettino Craxi. leader of the now defunct Socialist party. Mr Berlusconi told journal- ists he had been cited for November 30 by the anti-cor- ruption magistrates, who he accused conducting a political vendetta a gains t him as leader of Italy's right wing al lian ce. Earlier he had denied the pay- ments - revealed by magis- trates on Thursday - were made to Mr Craxi or the Social- ist party. Tliis is the first time magis- trates have directly linked Fin- invest with illicit funding of Mr Craxi and his Socialist parti-. Commentators pointed out that Mr Berlusconi and Mr Craxi had never concealed their long-standing dose per- sonal relationship. But they said it would be profoundly damaging to Mr Berlusconi's sbort political career if the Fin- invest group was proved to have secretly funded the Socialists in general and Mr Craxi in particular in return for business favours. Mr Craxi is widely regarded to have helped with 1990 legis- lation permitting Fininvest to possess three television chan- nels. The media magnate success- fully entered politics in 1994. presenting himself as a break from the postwar political establishment who had been discredited by corruption scan- dals. The most discredited of these politicians re mains Mr Craxi. The former Socialist leader, who is in Tunisia, this week acquired his third interna- tional arrest warrant, issued this time in connection with the Fininvest case. For more than a year Milan magistrates have been trying to identify those behind a total of LlObn transferred in 1991 to nominee accounts held for Mr Craxi. On Thursday magis- trates issued an arrest warrant for Mr Giorgio Vanone. head of finanri.il affair s for Fininvest’s foreign subsidiaries. He was charged with being responsible Craxi: in Tunisia for the transfer of L15bn, via offshore companies linked to Fininvest to Luxembourg and Swiss accounts controlled by two Craxi intermediaries. Of this total L5bn was subse- quently returned. Yesterday Mr Berlusconi denied pairing any payments to Mr Craxi. He insisted the transactions identified by Berlusconi: vendetta claim Milan magistrates as being handled by Fininvest's offshore subsidiaries had served to pay for film rights’ deals as a nor- mal part of the group’s media business. He said the deals "could only be faulted for hav- ing used the same lawyers, the same hank and the samp finan- cial channels as the Socialist party". Mr Berlusconi’s questioning comes a year after he was first placed under investigation for corr u pt i on. This related to alle- gations he was involved in pay- offs to the Guardia di Finanza, the financial police, to ensure favourable inspections of Fin- invest company balance sheets. He is due to stand trial on these charges in January. Consumers’ spending strike deepens gloom over French economy By John Ridding In Parts Parisian shopkeepers used to put up their shutters as dem- onstrations moved down the street. Yesterday, some were more concerned to lure through their doors those tak- ing the -day off to protest against welfare reforms. One clothes store bore the sign: “Take advantage of the strike. Big discounts." Fra - Mme Ivins, who runs an electrical stare in the east of the city, the explanation is simple: “We are desperate for customers. Business is very slow.” A boutique owner in the centre of the city concurs. "People still come. But they just don’t spend.” Consumer gloom is emerging as a serious problem in France, as serious, in its way. as the strikes and demonstrations which brought public services to a halt. “It is a very signifi- cant concern," says Mr Jean- Francois Merrier, economist at Salomon Bros. “It is a real threat to growth." Such fears were confirmed by yesterday’s announcement that household consumption fell by a surprisingly sharp 4.4 per cent between September and October, accelerating a downward trend. Earlier a sur- vey by the national statistics institute found consumer confi- dence was at its lowest point since the recession days of early 1993. There are several reasons behind the evaporation of France’s reel-good factor. The welfare reforms which brought the crowds on to the street involve a tax increase for most citizens and the prospect of reduced social security bene- fits. Mr Alain Juppe, the prime minis ter, has pledged to elimi- nate the annual FFrSOba (£7.78bn) welfare deficit by 1997 and the consumer will pick up a large part of the bilL If a rising welfare burden has dampened consumer ardour, so has a surprise rebound in unemployment. After a steady fall over the past year, the number of job- less rose in August and Sep- tember. “That added to a feel- ing that unemployment remains a real threat," says Mr Merrier. “Many people are still convinced that France r emain s in a crisis.” The problem is that such an attitude makes a crisis more likely. Weak consumption has prompted downward revisions in growth forecasts. Mr Jean Arthuis, the finance minister, plays lip service to official pre- dictions that GDP win rise by 2L8 per cent next year but pri- vate sector economists have long since lowered their sights to nearer 2 per cent Slower growth means lower tax receipts and an uphill task Iq meet budgetary targets. The fiscal rigour designed to curb France’s deficits and meet the Maastricht criteria for mone- tary union could therefore prove self-defeating. Mr Arthuis does not see. it like that He says the govern- ment's tough line on deficit reduction will strengthen investor confidence, clearing the way for a sustained M in interest rates and a shift, in income from high yielding savings instruments. “We must remove easy rent,” .he says, predicting a virtuous circle of lower borrowing costs, stron- ger growth and higher tax receipts. That is the ideal scenario. If the bottom of consumer confi- dence has now been reached - as some economists believe - and if the government can push through its reforms, then Mr Arthuis’ circle may start to spin. But these are big US. Yes- terday's demonstrations her- alded a period of turbulence and uncertainty. Even if the result is a clean-up of the pub- lic sector accounts and stron- ger growth, the process will take time. The new tax, mean- while, and some of the welfare cuts are due in January. “1 am not an economist,” says Mme Ivins. "But when people hav^ less money in their pockets then they have less to spend." Kohl rounds on Lafontaine for links with ex-co mmunis ts By Peter Norman in Bonn March 24 for state governments in Rhineland Mr Helmut Kohl, the German Palatinate, Baden chancellor, yesterday launched a savage attack on Mr Oskar Lafontaine, the recently elected leader of the opposition Social Democratic party, and his policy of rapprochement towards the former communist Party of Democratic Socialism. In one of his rare press conferences in Bonn, the chancellor said Mr Lafontaine was seeking power “at all costs" and accused the east German-based PDS of being a non-democratic party that was still wedded to Stalinism. Mr Kohl's aggressive performance was an early sign that the government has decided to treat the left-leaning Mr Lafontaine as a serious opponent and that politics in Bonn will be livelier than in the months since Mr Kohl's general election victory in October 1994. “It is going to be a tense altercation and I am looking forward to it with great pleasure because it will create clear battle lines." Mr Kohl said. He said the ruling Christian Democrat and Christian Social parties would not allow Germany’s political axis to shift to the left. The government parties would make clear that voters knew what was happening in the SPD ahead of elections on Wfirrtemberg and Schleswig Holstein. Alluding to a planned meeting between Mr Lafontaine and Mr Gregor Gysi, the PDS leader, Mr Kohl said co-operation between the SPD and PDS would be a “resounding thump on the ear" for all those who had struggled against communism in east Germany. The PDS was an extreme-left “anti-western and deeply anti-American party”. Mr Kohl also criticised the SPD for the way it had dismissed its Former leader, Mr Rudolf Scharping. at last week’s party congress in Mannheim. This event, unprecedented among the big German political parties, showed a “degree of shabbiness" that he had not believed possible. In recent weeks Mr Kohl has behaved increasingly as if he was above the party fray. In spite of a cold, he re-emerged yesterday as a political street fighter. However, the chancellor did not ignore the political necessities of life in a country where state governments controlled by the SPD have a majority in the Bundesrat. the second chamber in parliament Mr Kohl said be would meet Mr Lafontaine soon to discuss matters of mutual interest Emu ‘will trigger wave of banking mergers’ By Lionel Barber in Brussels Monetary union in Europe will trigger a wave of cross-border bank mergers similar to what is happening in the US, Mr HH- mar Kopper, chairman of Deut- sche Bank, said yesterday. In a glowing assessment of the business opportunities offered by a single currency. Mr Kopper said Emu would force European banks to com- pete more efficiently on an international scale and would increase competition among Europe's financial centres. “Only the big boys will sur- vive in the global banking mar - kets.” he told an audience of bankers, diplomats and indus- trialists in Brussels convened by the European League for Economic Cooperation. Mr Hopper’s remarks suggest that Deutsche Bank may be looking for acquisitions in post-fimu Europe - or at least a relaxation of rules which inhibit transnational hank mergers. Deutsche Rank has been one of the early champions of a sin- gle currency whose launch is planned for 1999. Mr Kopper sai d yesterday that his Hank would incur switchover costs of around DMlOQm (£45. 60m) as well as a loss in fores business and associated currency exchanges. The strategic prize, however. would be an acceleration of the forces of globalisation in Europe's banking industry and new opportunities in the wholesale sector such as secu- rities. derivatives, corporate fmanw and asset managed wit, particularly among wealthy individuals looking across national borders. “International private hank- ing is one of the areas that looks set to expand strongly in the mm mg years. The intro- duction of the single currency may trigger an almost revolu- tionary turnaround In private banking,” he said. After his speech, Mr Kopper revealed be made a private bet that Britain would join Emu before the end of 2002. The derision would be made under the “inspired leadership" of a prime minister Tony Blair, now leader of the opposition British Labour party, he suggested. He said the City of London would increasingly come round to the view it needed to be part of a single currency area, despite political reservations in Britain about Emu. Mr Kopper. appealed for more understanding of the debate in Germany about giv- ing up the D-Mark for the sin- gle currency. “A European cur- rency which does not offer the gamp stability as the D-Mark is not a viable alternative." In the shadow of the Russian bear With nationalism resurgent in his powerful neighbour, Ukraine’s President Kuchma, talks to Chrystia Freeland and Matthew Kaminski about the threats to his nation L enin once warned his Bolshevik comrades that “to lose Ukraine is to lose our head" anfl pro- ceeded to use the republic as the most important building block of the nascent Soviet Union. Nearly 80 years later, a new generation of Russian pol- iticians is confidently promis- ing to rebuild the Soviet Union, and Ukraine has again become central to Moscow’s reawakened imperial dream. For Ukraine’s President Leo- nid Kuchma, the resurgence of Russian nationalism is one of the greatest threats facing his nation and Europe as a whole. But Mr Kuchma has a message for the western leaders who share his concerns about the rise of Russian nationalism: supporting Ukraine, he says, is the best insurance against the re-emergence of an irredentist Russia, bent on conquering its neighbours. “Without Ukraine, there can be no Greater Russia," Mr /f V. ENTREPRISE NATIONALS BE FER ET DUE PHOSPHATE 7 ;./ • FERPHOS -. Stock company with registered capital of 3dO,pOO,pOO!#A NOTICE FERPHOS. a stale-owned Algerian company mining extensive rock phosphate reserves in the eastern pan of the country, hereby provides an opportunity to any Algerian or foreign individual or legal entity, wishing to invest in a phosphoric acid production project, to come into an association with FERPHOS. which has already completed a feasibility study of the project. All involvement conditions are subject to negotiation with both FERPHOS and the Algerian Government. Consent from Uie Algerian State will be in accordance with the country’s investment law. and an agreement between the State and the project operators will allow certain contractual advantages. The Algerian State can also offer free zone conditions for settlements and mining. The Algerian ground contains large reserves of rock phosphate whose mining can extend over centuries. Through its industrial tradition. Algeria is able to offer comprehensive infrastructure, skilled manpower, cheap sources of energy and a market with an ever increasing demand. For further information, please contact our Research and Development Division at the following address. ^ERPHO&,biyisiON RECHERCHE ET DEVELOPMENT*: ~~ - ~~ . ZH UivifcBP, 122, TEBES5A,- 12000, ALGERIA ' PHC^ f+213)84724 03or(+2i^8473J77 . . -’4 . : V FAX v- (+213) 8 47 45 02 w (+2i&6‘4? 45 3S : TELEX v 95004, 95005, 95009 • b- Kuchma says. "I think that from all points of view an inde- pendent. economically strong Ukraine in the centre of Europe is the best anchor of stability for the European con- tinent" Yet Mr Kuchma also warns that support for Ukraine must be material not just rhetorical. "The industrial east [of Ukraine] and Crimea are inclined to be in favour of the renewal of the Soviet Union," says Mr Kuchma, who argues that only strong western tack- ing for Ukraine's fragile eco- nomic reforms can ensure that his country remains united and independent As the west begins to con- sider what to do if a C-ommu- * nist-nationaJist coalition tri- umphs in Russia's December parliamentary elections, Mr Kuchma's view is winning influential adherents. On his most recent trip to Moscow, US President Bill Clinton made a point of also visiting Kiev and assuring his hosts that a stable and sovereign Ukraine was an important goal of US policy. The Baltic states and the coun- tries of eastern Europe, acutely sensitive to the slightest hint of Russian neo-imperialism, have been even more eager to encourage Ukraine to shore up its independence. Ukraine is emerging as a vital piece in the puzzle of post-cold war Europe because of its dangerous intlmicacy with its northern neighbour, which still appears to be cast- ing covetous glances in its direction. Almost four years after Ukrainians overwhelming supported independence in a national referendum, many ordinary Russians and their political leaders continue to casually assume that Kiev will eventually return to the Rus- sian fold. The most threatening manifestation of this attitude is the campaign pledge of the Communist party, Russia's most popular political group, to annul the 1991 treaty which was the legal basis for the dis- solution of the Soviet Union. The justification which Mr Gennady Zyuganov, the Com- munist leader, offers for this proposal is revealing: Ukraine and Russia are part of an indi- visible ethnic whole. Mr Zyuga- nov says, offering as evidence the fact that his wife is a Ukrainian from the eastern city of Kharkiv. The kinship which Russians feel towards Ukraine - and which many Ukrainians, especially those in the eastern regions and Cri- mea, feel towards Russia - means that Mr Kuchma must find a delicate balance between partnership with Russia and partnership with the west Unlike the Kremlin, which has been vociferous in its oppo- sition to the eastward expan- sion of Nato, Mr Kuchma sup- ports the admission of his eastern European neighbours Kuchma: hard-headed credo to the western military alli- ance. But he also realises it would be unrealistic for Ukraine, to apply join the west- ern club at the moment Tama pragmatist I know that Nato is not wafting for Ukraine with breathless antici- pation and that if I said tomor- row T want to join Nato’ no one in the west would cheer." But Mr Kuchma also has no Intention of joining the new military bloc Russia is trying to create. When his Russian counterparts urge Ukraine to become a membra. Mr Kuchma says that he counters their request with a question: “When they ask me to join, I tell my Russian partners that they should ask themselves, why it is that everyone wants to join Nato and no one wants to join the Tashkent alliance (the fledgling Russian-led mili- tary bloc).” Mr Kuchma’s attitude to Gazprom, Russia’s monolithic natural gas exporter, reflects a similar ambivalence. On one hand, Mr Kuchma, who has a warm personal relationship with Gazprom bosses, has worked hard to improve Ukraine's relationship with Russia's biggest company. He converted Ukraine's $2.5bn debt to Gazprom into state bonds and this year. Ukraine, with the assistance of the International Monetary Fund, has been more or less paying its bills on time. But. despite his efforts to establish a working relation- ship with Gazprom. Mr Kuchma is sceptical about the company's fundamental motives. “What Gazprom wants is to own everything in Ukraine - especially they want the gas pipeline, our gas stor- age facilities, and many of our s trategic factor! es, " Mr Kuchma says. “We must not give them the opportunity to acquire these things.” The tricky task of building a working relationship with a company and a country whose underlying aim is domination, has led Mr Kuchma to develop a hard-headed credo: “We have to co-operate with the Rus- sians, but that doesn't mean we have to trust them." This is an ambivalent policy, but one which Mr Kuchma is well placed to conduct. As Ukrainian president he is posi- tioning himself as Europe’s first line of defence against a neo-imperialist Russia. But, as the former director of the USSR’s largest missile-building factory. Mr Kuchma was once in the front line of the Soviet Union's cold war. Karadzic holds Sarajevo talks By Paul Wood in Belgrade The Bosnian Serb leader. Mr Radovan Karadzic, last night held a crisis meeting with political and military chiefs from Serb-held parts of Sara- jevo which are due to be handed over to the Moslem-led government under the Dayton peace agreement. Mr Karadzic refused to make any comment when he arrived at the meeting, but he is expect to face an angry reception fol- lowing reports from the Bel- grade news agency. Tanjug. that he had given his ha cking to the peace deal Bosnian Serbs say that more than 100,000 Serbs live in Sara- jevo and some observers believe the hand-over will unleash a fresh wave of refu- gees. Germany will contribute to the reconstruction of Serbia and the Serb part of Bosnia once a formal peace has been agreed, Mr Helmut Kohl, the German chancellor, said yesterday, writes Peter Norman m Barm. Although Germany and German public opinion have been strongly opposed to Serb actions in Bosnia, Mr Kohl said he wanted peace in the region and was "absolutely opposed to keeping old animosities alive". Hr Kohl said Germany was prepared to pay about 30 per emit of the EU share of the burden in line with its current contributions to the EU. He expected the Bundestag to decide before Christmas (m the despatch of German peacekeepers. The Bosnian president, Alia Izetbegovic, has moved quickly, to try to reassure the Serbs, telling Sarajevo Radio on Wednesday that the govern- ment would issue a proclama- tion to allow them to stay in their homes. Mr Karadzic has made no public pronouncements on the Dayton agreement The Tanjug agency said he had reluctantly agreed to implement it after being summoned to a secret meeting with President Milos- evic in Belgrade on Thursday. The Belgrade media reported that he had been offered a deal by President Milosevic under which he agreed to go into retirement in return for not facing extradition to the UN court at the Hague to face war crimes charges. Si milar speculation sur- rounds the Bosnian Serb mili- tary commander, Gen Ratko Mladic, also facing indictments for war crimes. He is said to have been offered a new post in the Yugoslav army by Presi- dent Milosevic. The Serbian leader has been trying to force through the peace deal to ensure that inter- national economic sanctions against federal Yugoslavia will be permanently lifted. Facing opposition from Pale and Serb-held parts of Sara- jevo, he has formed alliances with politicians in the north- ern town of Banja L uka, which has been left in a strong posi- tion to become capital of a future Bosnian Serb state as a result of territorial swaps agreed in Dayton. n Enound w ' I'MWNlU 0030 0100 0130 0200 0230 0300 0330 0400 0430 0500 0530 osoo 0830 0700 0730 0000 0630 0900 0830 1000 1030 1100 1130 1200 1230 1300 1330 1400 1430 1SC0 1530 1600 1030 1700 1730 1800 1030 1900 1930 2000 9 07 12.78 1176 12-76 834 094 097 BXC 697 HOT 098 BIOS &B7 038 438 aw 9 08 890 19JO 25.17 37.83 25.17 25.17 2517 1735 1735 1438 1438 1438 934 902 932 17.00 2237 3178 3a BO 2 829 242* 193* 1&15 17.77 1732 1730 turn 8.92 49? 492 438 437 8 96 831 831 830 832 412 931 838 898 496 902 9.79 14.18 1433 1433 2030 2000 1638 1669 1*33 1*33 933 932 837 434 833 437 937 2037 3024 36*9 36-18 3034 2027 149C Pan ■M6 nan tow 1098 iaw 83V 431 4S0 082 012 491 089 094 096 902 1133 1022 1037 1637 2234 2234 1632 1092 1037 1637 003 932 097 494 4 31 097 937 22.31 3238 3053 3052 3238 2231 1638 1049 1826 1533 1542 1133 1133 097 <133 THE FINANCIAL TIMES Tbe Financial Times (Europe) GmbH. NiWumaiplan 3. 60318 Frank- tienrany. Telephone ++49 J* *5 Fa * -M ' W w ^ +«l. Tries 416193 Represented in Franklinl by J. Walter Brand. Wilhelm J. Bril»d Coto A. kcrawnl as GachJfofDluer and m Loo- T? *1 C M Ml. Chairman, and Attn c. Miller. Deputy Chairman. Share- BOMm of ihc Financial Times fEurnpt) pM>H are- The Fmonaal Times i Europe) un. London and F.T. (Germane Advcrw- L id. London. Shareholder of tbe aboie mentioned two com panies is. The Fmaacul Tin»s Limited. Number One ggwsr^Bndpc. Loudon SEI 9HL. R^po^le for Advert bang. Cota A. Ken- naid Primer DVM Dmck-Venneb utd Marketing GmbH, Admiral-Roscndahl- 3a, 63263 Neu-bcnburg loaned bv Hrnnyet latenutkmnli. ISSN 0174 7363 ?f a P° osi b te Ridunl Lambert, do Lun »«i- dumber One Soulhwark Bndpi. London SEI 9HL FRANCE: ^bfefa^ Dnraor D. Good. It* Rue de ^ C.'*4 n was placoi under ipcoil llquklaskM ac cordi ng u die prontom o l ankfc 46a of Law IX42/|W*l In objective* mdudal the nmpifaaaring of cotton yams, knitted fabrics and bed coven. ASSETS OFFERED FOR SALE ai A cotton ipuniog and wcnlng roll, dyeing and flniablng units. cunhi£-acwta£ icanflccnM) urns The ehole csmpfca uanu ta of several h u l fc ttqp , Ihc total nirtacc of which nouns as approximately 16/4X1 >q m . stand mp on a plot of abonl J2.1I4JI aqjn. according m dir relevant topogra p hic plan, c o n ta ining machinery, mechanical equipment, etc. The Company') traJr name et alu un idler The mill n located at ■Greta", at [hr Mh km ai the NaUond LanKa-Theeakniki Road, m die repon of Koulown. On IV I Uffl the laettaj m toned to TNCO GMBH IMPORT - EXPORT a limned liabthiy vutnpum bared m KieftU (2241 QamaJI Si 4150 KrefcUL It was auMctncd to "INKO HELLAS LTD TEXTILES MANUFACTURING AND TRADING INDUSTRIALS A.” Thii lure aaa u uc nu p fca l <*i 7 11.95. h> A pirn of land of abwr 1 .1220 adjonuns the facts) plot, at to 6th km of Ihe National Laima ■ Thraiakauki Road m Ihe report of Knufanm. TERMS AND CONDITIONS OFTHE AUCTION I Thr Auction rtall lake pin « jo an d an ce "tdi die pros Mom of anteke 46a of La* 1892/1990 in ™ft4cmcmaJ by article 14 of Law 3JW91 and auhaequendy amended), tbe term and rnnddion* act forth herein and the -Terms and Cooditian of Sale" contained in the Ottering MrmomndHm Such pravtriom Mil other (etna and coreftttom atoll apply u reflectively of •timber Lbr> am moaumed herein or not SubnassSnn ofNniftng offcra tail mean aocqusncc of ■uch povaiCTii and otter terms and condtowo. (This h the dilid Auction w take place.) 2. RmJure Offer, IntereateJ pantei are hereby united to submit MaSag ot to s not laser than Tuesday December 14ft. 1943, I2.IU hours BO dK Athena Notary ftailC Mr. Geacge SMQtaksa. Atahrari»5L.»v. I U6 72 Ad>en».TcLr-)0- l-64AftL22andJ6DA969.fi*: +30-1-1 64S.D4JJ. Often should rtpi ruty itaie the ottered prior end die detailed rami of payment (m cadi or nauhnmta mcocsonlnj the mroher of Btn a fa i rm . ihe dam thereof and Ibe proposed maul anereai rate, if nt«s. In the man of dm specifying.- at die nay at payment, bl whether dw credited B i ranaa shall hear natal lead cl die o n e re a r rate, dm it shad napecnvdy be deemed ■faal a) Ac irflcred price a parable upon exeaam a f Ihe trie cenna. bl the m o unt cndol ihall hear no mterett and c' die mere* rate (hell be ihe kepi rare hi (ace from me to time. In all ures »hcrr {he cmtml uuura bear* kriocaL dda ihaD be cakotaicd on Ihe ban of (he monanrtmg amom and ihall be payable on Ihe Bom of paymem each Butabnem. Btmftng ottos ■damned tar dm dir above date ihall readier be acmpaed oorconmfcred. die altos dull be hmduvg until die adjudnuman. Subrnfamoo at altoi In favour of a dud party m be mowonal at a Itact *agr stall be m-tpacd m conuoroi dm Ah u espmriy stated upon mbm uH on and that ihe oRcra, ihall gore a personal guatunaoc In ravwr of inch Ihtnl patty tat die comphnoe of the oMiptmn hnihg froin ihe laic caanCL .1 Lenm of Cluaranrec : Balding often muri Ire a e vta ivp oi ncd by a Lata of Gusanuc Bned m ■.tsdon woh dr uinpke Laser of Oamlec coatained ■ to Ottering Monmlaa by ■ bank legally q retmns In Greece, m remain -ahd until Ibe ad>i b cheat bhkler rioH be cooBdcrod the parte i pai o. wtuwe oiler win be jnlpd by mdon rcpreienting over JIG of the claims again*! Ibe Company I ihe "CieditonT. upon RcomnienJatsuo by ihe Liquidator, in be In tbe beat mmn of ail of the cmUlort or ihe Cosopmy. Foe be [reimire of cvriutaao, an otto lobe pod in mhnrnri riwH be aa aeai od on die basts of ns imni iik xs be caka lai r il by employing a IW arnnl Awcmi Hem rate, .-oirpoumlcd yearly. 7 The Lapadama ihall giMJ written notice m the Ughm ladder Id qpor m Ihe dale and plan: mcntsmcO dremn and rsectoe the contract of aafc m aooonhnoe wbb die Bus i ronto ri B Ida bmlmg offer amUre any other rmpcoveJ arzm. wbeb may be ntggened by (he CnaSm and agreed upon, hi the evrmof die hijhaa tokto ant complying with rercb rfigshrvi. die Letto of Guarantee shall be furfoBd aa a penalty- Adjudcttlso shall bo deemed to take effect upon cut-ulKn of Ihc insract of mk. S AS rasa xtf ejqmm of ny ramiu. fadudlng my tn inch as VA.T.J. dUUcs. cusunt duties, nj .i w y i qi ftvour of the rime or fled partr*. which may need to Ire paid letter dtm that evrmptol by bwl m reapeei of Ihe paiKh*itm hi die Ataakai *d die MMto of Ihe aaaaa oftcred hereby for rale, ihe sale contraA aa ud u any odter act pnor m- nitaeqaatt to die WfWa of aura ihall be cicWctj boor by tbe parfieTpanta and the (nduier rrapecnwij. f. De i kymtsw and ihe Cnetfaun dull have no liability nor obhfiMn "iBBoeror wsranh dx pait mp« B m tchran to the evahtmon of the oflenor dteappofatnnem of the higbem hdJtrtf any dectuon u repeal or caooel dr AucDcn or aoy decMan wtaBoever In coancnon whh dr imMifinp of dr Aik-flon. The Ltqoidason or the CtnSun shiJI haw no liriblity for miy legal m actual defevts of tor asoeu. SntnaoKin of Hmfang often than not a w e any nghi for the aJnabcauon rew dre poniopreua adquhe any Rght. pomer or dam from tMa CaQ andtor dnr pamapMaa in the Aucm agrinat the tiqoidal o r and/or die C reddest to «ny me ■hauaever. W Tim Call h*a been drafted m C«*i ml oanalmed tom Engtah. In any cram, fte Greek 'rontot drill pres *3. la onto to aMaki e^jy af the OBMug MriBonwtoM aad fhrttor taftsmatfan plaiM apply to the Uqrtdator- EOndhi KephaMon SA, AAntoMmloa ar Aaaeti and Lkbamrir. •a ChryaMBvOotUtSLAIhaa ltS48.GrtMa.W4 *30-1023.14^4-7, Fos: JO-1 Jim* (antnftos afitn. Marita l r taagakb).'KL: ♦30-41-5SWT9. “Pubbshea as merri of July 1995. Travel the Asia-Pacrfic business world by mouse Now that FT Country Surveys are available on (Dak, you may eflek your way around a country’s business landscape with ease. Maps, ^aphSy tables .. . case studies... economic and political news and profiles . . . key facts. At the touch of a button, your FT Survey becomes a portable woriring document ORDER FORM Tick the Country/Coumries below that you wish a receive. A single Survey is priced at £25; 2-5 Surveys are priced at £20 each; 5-20 Surveys are priced at just £17 each- SswyawB be ifc ua tdied mat (bay arm p wh ll oh o d Please enter your address and payment details below; Surname Initials Address For Windows Q or Apple Mac Q. 1~~1 i enclose a UK cheque for £. financial Times Ltd 1 . .payable to [3 Please debit my credit card for £ □ Amex □ Mastercard Q Access □ Visa Card No: Expiry Date: Signature:. □ aus Qcw Dlnd- □■lap* j^Mai Qptil Qs*n* □ »tor □« □ Tha □ Vic Please return your completed order fomi with payment to: ■ FT Exporter, No. 1 Southwartf Bridge, London SE1 9HL, United Kingdom, or fax your Oder to us on +44 171 873 4862. □ Please tick this box If you prefer ntxioreceim information about other FT products and from other selected compenias. . In 1995, 60 FT Country Surveys ^rnamm will be piMstwciM floppy in as&oaatkrtvnm TsfAFf m the first stage of the pipeline between the Russian towns of Ttkhoretsk and Novorossiysk. The Omanis, who became involved in tbe CPC after giv- ing the Kazakh government a much-needed hard currency loan when the country emerged as an independent state in 1991, are not going to walk away. Mr Ed Smith, an Oman Ofl representative and director of the CPC, says the Omani gov- ernment has already spent $70m on feasibility studies and is still fully committed to the project B ut he claims the Rus- sian and Kazakh gov- ernments most deliver on all its promises before it can attempt to raise fhian«« from international banks. He suggests the talk of an alternative consortium is sim- ply a negotiating tactic. -We think it is an apparition. There is nothing there,” he says. Bat, he admits, the Omani government would con- sider an offer to buy them out of the original consor- tium. “At the right price, I think that is a possibility.” he says. John Thor nhill an d Anthony Robinson INTERNATIONAL NEWS DIGEST Economy aide in Spain quits ^treasury, was immediately appointed to succeed hnn. The ■ economy ministry ruled out speculation that Mr Pastor s abrupt departure was caused by policy divisions. Mr Pastor had championed tight spending and faster deregulation during bis two and half years in thopwt, and TOSknown to be at odds with other senior! members of the ministry. Although he had expressed fas wish to leave several •: memthsago, it was expected he would stay until general elections which are scheduled for March. Hi g departure comes at an awkward time for the govSxSeut - its draft 1996 budget was rejected by ’ parbamatf last month - but officials said the appointment of MrConthe - underlined tbe government’s continued commitm e nt to lowering the deficit Mr Conthe, who has built up astrong . - profiled money markets after managing Siam s debt fartfce nStlQ years, holds similar views to those ofMr Pasto andls admired for his professionalism. Tom Bums, Modrxl Estonia moves to join EU Estonia’s prime minister, Mr Tiit Vahi, yesterday signed. an official application to join the European Union, makin g Estonia the second former Soviet Baltic republic ^to seek .... memb ership of the community. T allinn has sought close ties. . with the west and a rapid shift to a market economy since ^ independence from the Soviet Union in 199L Estonia’s neighbour Latvia made its formal application to . join thfiEU in October. Lithuania, the third former Soviet - republic in the Baltics, has not yet announced when it plans to aroly. AP.ToWnn Bangladesh parliament dissolved Bangladeshi President Abdur Rahman Biswas dissolved^ • parliament yesterday at the request of B%um Khaleda Zia* - prime minister, and asked her to stay until a general election is cfl ll ed Polls not been due until next March. Opposition parties resigned from par liam e nt last Dece mb er,, accusing the government of rigging a by-election in 1994 and „ of sweeping corruption. They had refused to take part in a by-election planned for December 15. The parties want Mrs Khaleda, elected in 1991 in what were failed as the c ountry 's first free polls, to step down and hand -power to a neutral caretaker administration to hold free and fair elections. Diplomats in Dhaka have urged Bangladesh’s fe uding gove rnment and opposition leaders to compromise and avoid pinng in g the country into chaos. Reuter, Dhaka Asian growth to outpace world Asia’s economies are expected to grow three times faster than the rest of the world over the next two years but the average . rate wfa slow slightly from this year’s 8 per cent to 7.1 per cent In 1997, according to the Asian Development Bank. ADB economists said in Manila yesterday that the dramatic growth of intra- Asian trade, which has quadrupled to more than $800bn (£506bn) since 1980, will continue to propel Asia’s high- growth rates and attract strong foreign direct investment to the region. But worries of economic overheating - including higher inflation in Thailand , Malaysia and China - would slow the regional average, they said. Anti -inf la t ion policies are expected to reduce China’s growth rate from 10 per cent this year to 8.5 per cent fa 1997. Apart from the Philippines, which is expected to have a growth rate of 7 per emit in 1997 from an estimated 5.5 per cent this year, south-east Asia’s growth rate is predicted to decelerate slightly from 7 J9 per cent this year to 73 per cart in 1997. Edward Luce, Manila Sri Lankan tea prices soar ;> v . Sri Lankan tea exports to . - • * farmer Soviet Union ' . countries climbed 256 per .■■■ ■ - cent in the year to September, ^ ^ ... ■ making ft the biggest market ■' for the island's tea. Brokers V V ? ‘ ' ■' . H said yesterday that the surge 20 in demand, especially for the island’s distinct low grown 15 “ teas, sent prices shooting to ■ record levels at Colombo tea auctions last week. Following - the breakup of the Soviet Union * Sri Lankan exporters JUUIU have m a n a ged to cash in on ' - tiaao •••• ui- ■ -as ‘ - as tbe high-quality image of the - eland's tea. throu^ sowot F orties andwator . : .sapt" improved marketing. “Market access for Sri I jnitan traders was much more difficult under the centrally-planned system," said Mr Anil Cooke, of brokers Forbes and Walker. The fell in the value of the rupee this year also helped boost exports, he added. The tea industry chalked up record production and export figures last year and should bring in a s imilar crop this year, ma rket a nalysts said. Tea production last year reached 242.2m kg, from 2313m kg in 1993. The previous record was 2408m kg produced in 1991. Higher tea prices would help cash-strapped and debt-ridden plantation companies to make short-term gains but would not help address long-term issues of accumulated debt and high production costs, the brokers said. Reuter, Colombo Salinas’ sister-in-law held The sister-in-law of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas has been arrested in Switzerland in connection with an Investigation into a drug trafficking and money laundering ring. Swiss authorities did not name Mrs Paulina Castafidn. i ^5° i l^ ne, i to S 31 ^. the former president's faderjfantoer, but the attorney-general's office in Mexico 9**™ after attempting tovrithdraw $8fen (£53m) from a bank account with forged Pratts have always left office far SS?IriS wh en they arrived, this is the firet time a close jsss^nsssi^ 1 has •* t £S Ifi v c 9 caine raters the US is smugried throurii J* i • : -.v SourrarForfses andWj*»r s=ssbc*““-‘ asSisS; RIQHTS 1 FOR A FREE FACT SHEET I about the rights you have in the UK and ft roughout the European Community on: B package holidays ■ *•“ unfair contract terms |B ^rite to PO Box 9432, HR London NW 1 4 WA, UK, tl m £3 mi ,i ir. GRUm.) GI T FINANCIAL TIMES WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25/NOVEMBER 26 1995 NEWS: UK Joint venture with biggest Australian life house will underpin expansion in Europe and North America Branson changes financial services partner By AGson Smith in London and Nikki Tail In Sydney Mr Bichard Branson's Virgin Group plans to sell more prod- ucts in the UK through its tele- phone sales financial services subsidiary and to expand the operation into other countries. Mr Rowan Gormley, manag- ing director of Virgin Direct, was reluctant to be specific about priorities for expansion overseas. But mainland Europe appears to head the list, which also Includes north America. “We are looking at places where the Virgin brand is Strong, the marg ins are high and the service is poor," be said. The first overseas opera- tion is likely to open towards the end of next year or the start of 1997, selling discretion- ary investments. Virgin will part company with Norwich Union, the large UK insurer which was its part- ner when it launched Virgin Direct in March. It will enter a joint venture with Australian Mutual Provident Society, Aus- tralia's largest life assurer. AMP has committed £50m (SUSTBm) to the development of the UK Virgin Direct busi- ness and will acquire a SO per cent stake. AMP and Virgin will also commit "substantial'’ funds to the overseas opera- tion. In Britain, Virgin Direct intends to start selling term assurance and personal pen- sions over the telephone early next year. Its existing range of two personal equity plans (Peps) has already taken In more than £L00m - almost £100m of it through its UK Index Tracking Trust Initially, the new products will be available only without advice. That is the route the Marks & Spencer retail chain took when it launched Its life and pensions operation in April. But Virgin expects to. start giving financial advice over the telephone from about the middle of next year. Mr Gormley sounded doubt- ful about the prospect of early expansion in Australia, saying there were more promising opportunities elsewhere. This should reduce the possir blllty of overlap with AMP operating under its own nam e . Norwich Union said yesterday that one reason for parting was that it was well represented outside Britain. It also wanted to develop its international businesses - some of which already implode direct selling - in its own right. It is also to launch Its own direct insurance operation, which should start selling motor and household insur- ance early next year, and expand httn selling unit trusts and Peps later in the year. Car dealers to share pricing secrets By John (kWilhs in London Buyers of used cars are so fearful of the motor trade that more than 3m every year acquire their cars from the shark-infested waters of pri- vate small ads rather than visit a dealer’s lot. That may change thank* to a joint venture which will open to private buyers the secrets of how the motor trade values used cars. It is being launched by the Kalamazoo computer systems group and Glass’s Information Services, publisher of Glass’s Guide, the motor trade’s monthly valua- tion “bfble”. The computer network-based system has already been tested in the much smaller markets of Scandinavia and the Nether- lands by Kalamazoo with local used car valuation groups. It aims to end the d eep mistrust of private motorists towards car dealers quoting prices or trade-in values from what until now have been confiden- tial, trade-only guides. It wiD start a pilot operation next month among 10 large dealerships. Including Green- boos, Britain's largest dealer in cars from Vauxhall, the British offshoot of General Motors of the US. An electronically updated form of Glass’s trade valua- tions will be put on screen for scrutiny by the used car buyer, with a step-by-step cal- culation of the costs and even tiie profit margin which make up the gap between buying and selling prices. Vehicle preparation costs, stocking time, interest charges and other overheads incurred by the dealer, and how adjust- ments for mileage are made, can be shown on screen. Glass’s, recently the subject of a management buy-out, has been pressing ahead rapidly to bolt on to the monthly, paper-based guide more flexi- ble and quickly updatable electronically-distributed information. Glass's and Kala- mazoo are sharing the grow- ing database, which is being updated weekly and for the first time can take account of regional variations. The existing national guide price, for example, does not allow for lower prices in areas where thousands of employees of Ford and Vauxhall can buy more cheaply cars which even- tually find their way into the local used car market The motor trade is aware that 46 per cent of the 7m used car sales in the UK each year are between private buyers and sellers, many of them fearful Qfbeing “ripped off" by traders. “What other industry would let half of its business be done in the private market?", Mr Simon Book, Kalamazoo’s motor trade general manager, asked last night One of the system’s first “guinea pigs” was Veho, Finland's largest Honda and Mercedes dealer. The company has reduced its stock turnaround on used cars from 60-70 days to around 20 days, said Mr Pekka Bissa, the managing director of Veho. RaHWay privatisation Judge accepts challenge to rule allowing cuts in train frequencies Court review of service levels may delay sales By Charles Batchelor, Transport Correspondent The government's rail privatisation plans were thrown Into disarray yesterday when the High Court in Lon- don granted leave for a judge to review the levels of service which have been demanded by the franchising director. The decision could lead to a delay in the sale of passenger train franchises which are a significant part of privatisation of the national British Rail net- work. The gover n ment hopes to privatise a large part of BE network before the general election due at the latest by June 1997. The case revolves around the timetables drawn up by Mr Roger Salmon, franchising director. The legislation privat- ising the railway required train frequencies to be “based on" the gristing timetable. But railway campaigners, munici- pal authorities and transport trade unions argued that Mr Salman’s decision to set mini- mum service requirements in some cases well below the cur- rent rail timetable was unlaw- ful If the High Court rules that Mr Salmon must redraw the timetables, that could delay the franchise sell -offs. Save our Railways, the organisation which brought the case, and the opposition Labour Party said privatisation should be halted. But the Department of Transport said the court decision would not affect the process. Mr Jonathan Bray, co-ordina- tor of the campaign for Save our Railways, said: “If Mr Salmon foils to convince the court then the franchising pro- cess will have to be restarted, wrecking the government's rail privatisation plans.” A foil hearing of the argu- ments about timetable levels will take place in the High Court on December 7. Mr Jus- tice Brooke said the case made by Save our Railways was “properly arguable.” Mr bfigel Fleming, a lawyer for the cam- paigners, said at yesterday’s two-hour hearing that a gov- ernment instruction that ser- Mark Dowd, chairman of Save Our Railways (left), discussing tactics outside the High Court in London with Keith Bell, the campaigning organisation’s secretary vices should be based on exist- ing timetables to protect the travelling public “has not been obeyed." But Mr Salmon said he was satisfied that the ser- vice levels set were in accor- dance with the instructions he had received from the Depart- ment of Transport. “Today's hearing merely ascertained that there Is a point to be argued and not the merits of the argument" His office would “strenuously defend” its position a£ the review. Yesterday's ruling refers to the second set of franchises to be offered far sale: Intercity East Coast, Gatwlck Express, Midland Main Line and Net- work SouthCentral. A decision on a challenge to services required in the first set of fran- chises. for Great Western, South West Trains and Lon- don, Tilbury and Southend, will be made on December 7. Franchise bidder rejects 'failed salesman 5 jibe By our Transport Correspondent ’Die company which is expected to win one of the first British Rail franchises to be sold yesterday launched a defence of its managing director against charges that he was “a failed double-glazing salesman”. Resurgence Railways, the company which is thought to have won the bidding for the state-owned Great Western Trains company, said that Mr John Ansdell had had “a highly successful business career”. The opposition Labour party revealed on Thursday that Mr Ansdell bad been a director of Conservatories and Windows (UK), which was declared insolvent with debts of more than £57,000 ($89,000) last Marrh Resurgence said Mr Ansdell formed part of a team of managers which had experience (rf railway operations and which had “the substantial backing of leading financial institutions”. Mr Ansdell had joined the board of Conservatories and Windows, a manufacturing- company, in September 1994. By early 1995, the company had become the largest supplier to Ashcroft Conservatories, a large retailer which was wound up In February 1995. Resurgence said, that Ashcraft owed Conservatories and Windows a large amount of money . which it could not . pay and the latter company ceased t rading . Resurgence also responded to the claim by Labour that Mr Ansdell was finance director with Trafalgar House when it was criticised for “creative accounting.” It said that Trafalgar House’s 1991 accounts were reviewed by the investigation committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Dngfand and Wales. The institute said it was satisfied that the accounts had been prepared “after appropriate consideration, of the Issues tevolved,” Resurgence 1 -pointed out that Mr Ansdell had also been international controller with Ashland Oil and executive director with the pharmaceutical group Merck St Co. The names of the winning bidders for the first three rail franchises - including South West Trains and London, Tilbury and Southern - are due to be announced in December. Tories refuse to back EU alignment of racism laws By Kevin Brown, Chief Poetical Correspondent The government was facing a fresh round of attacks on its approach to immigration and race relations yesterday after Mr Michael Howard, home sec- retary, refused to back plans to harmonise European Union anti-discrimination legislation. Mr Howard shrugged off crit- icism from Immigrants’ organi- sations, insisting that many of the proposed measures were unnecessary and that others would be counter-productive. He said the UK already had effective legislation. “It would mean changing our laws in a very significant way for reasons that do not have very much to do with the cir- cumstances we encounter in Britain," Mr Howard told BBC radio. “We have a longer history of laws affecting race relations than almost any other country in the European Union, more comprehensive legislation than any other country and better race relations than almost any- other country." However, the row coincided with renewed attacks on Mr Howard's asylum and immigra- tion bill, which will tighten asylum procedures and make employers responsible for checking that employees are legally entitled to work. Mr Tim Melville-Ross, director-general of the Institute of Directors, told GMTV in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday that it was “too much to expect businessmen to act in that kind of policeman capac- ity”. Mr Melville-Ross said it was "unacceptable” that businesses faced fines for “unwittingly”, employing illegal immigrants. He said there “racial implica- tions" in the proposed rules, which would discourage employers from hiring. The Campaign for Racial Equality issued a hard-hitting attack on draft regulations published in October which are intended to deter bogus asylum applications by making it harder for some applicants to claim benefits. The CEE said that withdraw- ing benefits could fence about 8,000 asylum speakers onto the streets with no money for food or shelter. “At the coldest time of year, it is difficult to see how these people will survive," it said. Senior Conservatives said Mr Howard wanted more time to study the proposed harmonisa- tion of anti-discrimination measures, which would impose an EU-wlde ban on racist or xenophobic literature, incite- ment to race hatred, and denial of the holocaust However, Mr Claude Moraes, director of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said it was “shameful" for Mr Howard to refuse to back the proposals. Mr Eldred Tabach- nlk, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said tiie UK “veto" was “deeply regrettable." Fishermen attack move to cut quotas by up to 54% By Deborah Hargreaves in London Angry fishermen came to London yesterday to hear gov- ernment scientists explain why they are halving some fishing quotas for next year. Fisher- men say the quota cuts wiU lose the industry millions of pounds and push many trawler owners out of business. “We are extremely dubious about the validity of the scien- tific evidence and just do not see any justification for the depth of cuts proposed,” said Mr Barrie Deas. chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermens’ Organisations. In a heated meeting yester- day. about 50 fishermens’ rep- resentatives vented their anger on the scientists. The industry is deeply sceptical about the evidence on which the quota cute are based. The government is proposing a cut of 54 per cent In the quota for western mackerel to 2804)00 tonnes. North Sea her- ring and plaice win be cut by 47 per cent to 230,000 tonnes and 61,000 tonnes respectively. Planned reductions in quotas for most other varieties of fish range from 25 to 35 per cent. The final quotas for next year win be decided at a meet- ing of European Union fish- eries ministers next month. Mr Tony Baldry, UK fishing minister, has organised a series of meetings far scientists to explain to the industry the reasons behind the quota cuts. “Just over 40 per cent of our stocks are viable.” Mr Baldry said. “The rest are at critical levels and are close to col- Fishermen say that, while they agree with scientists about the long-term trends in fish stocks, short-term predic- tions are flawed. UK NEWS DIGEST Forte scorns Granada chiefs ‘megalomania’ Sir Rocco Porte, chairman and chief executive of Porte, the UK’s largest hotels company, yesterday launched a force peraonal attack on Mr Geny Robtasom chief executive of Gnmada, following a Mm ($5.1bn> hostile bid for Porte ott Wednesday. Tie attack came as Granada, the TVand Jetera; group, published its offer document, claming: Forte had lost Sedfoffity and “forfeited the right to counton” the support of shareholders any longer. 'Sir Rocco said Mr Robmson was -a “cyclical surf-rider" and accused the Granada executive of taking^ advantage of companies ^on the upswing of a bu mness Cy sfr Btocca who bas^pent his working lifein tbehotefe i and restaurant empire founded by his father, Lord Forte, raid to hotel business." “Robinson is trying to steal this company, . Sir Rocco added. “He’s talking about a break-up and has net going to do it.” V Mr Gerry Robinson, chairman-designate of Granada, last night rtprfinpri to comment on what he saw as personal abuse, but defended his corporate record. “I have never been m a company for less than nine years and I have never left a company that has not done well afterwards, Mr Robmsoa said! FT Financial and Consumer Industries Staff Men in the News, Rage 10 Cocaine smugglers jailed Two London men were each sentenced yesterday to 30-year jail terms for an international cocaine smuggling plot The terms are believed to be the longest imposed by an English court for drugs offences. Mr George Sansom was said to be In charge of marketing the drug in Britain while Mr Coleman Mulkerrins masterminded the operation. A judge in Snares- brook, east London, told the men that drug tr affickin g had become a “mulfiMHion pound industry in this country.” The court heard that a ship bought with money provided by Mr Mulkerrins had been traced after it had loaded drugs off the coast of Venezuela and until it docked in L ondon . The 796.6kg of cocaine - one of the biggest ever ggfaorf - was found in a London lock-up unit after a 12-month surveillance operation Involving police and Customs officers. Six mainly members of the ship's crew, were arrested. But in 1993 a London jury acquitted them all of being know- ingly nftnnwngd in importing the drugs. Mr Mulkerrins was arrested in May last year while Mr Sansom was only recently extradited fram Spain. The case np»in«d- the two *ngn was transferred from a Lon- don court to the eastern En gland city of Norwich after the T^mdrm jury hart been dischar ged fallowing complaints of ‘ u nwa r r a n ted attention”. A Norwich jury convicted Mr Mulk- errins and Mr Ransom of being knowingly concerned in foe illegal' import of 795.6kg of cocaine. Both denied the charge. • Six P olish men were questioned by Customs investigators in the southern England port of Dover yesterday after the. seizure trf 60kg of hereto. The six were arrested after a routine check of vehicles disembarking from a ferry from the French port of. Calais. Heroin, was found concealed in a spare tyre of a Gentian-registered Mercedes car. • In an unrelated incident at Dover, Customs officers yester- day seized 20kg of Ecstasy worth about Elm ($1.56m). PA News 'Time bandit’ attacked Britain’s possible adoption of central European, time emerged yesterday as a potentially volatile issue for the new parliamen- tary session. Opponents ofJhe change. served notice they will 'rally their farces against a bill to be submitted by Mr John ButterfiH, Cons erva tive MP for Bournemouth West, to Alex Sahnond, leader of foe Scottish National party, described Mr^jt ButterflU as a “would-be time-bandit, threatening Scotland with daylight robbery”. “Just a week after John Major [the prime minister] was arguing for sensitivity to Scottish inter- ests, a Tory MP from the deepest south is proposing legislation that would plunge Scotland into darkness," Mr Salmood said. An issue that has long been on the periphery at Westminster burst to the fore on Thursday when Mr Butterfill, an ardent supporter of the daylight saving cause, came top of the annual ballot of MPs for backbench bills. John Kampfner, Westminster Water companies under fire The opposition Labour party attacked the performance of privatised water companies after the industry’s regulator revealed that more customers queried their bills last year than at any time since privatisation. Amid continuing political controversy over the operations of the 30 water companies. Labour argued that the increase in the number of queries - up from 14£m in 1993-94 to 15.4m in 1994-95 - was a sign of public ftoy at the service. The Office of Water Services (Ofwat) - whic h yesterday published the figures in an annual report - gave a slightly more upbeat assessment than Labour’s. Mr Ian Byait, Ofwat director-general, said many of the 30 companies were getting better at han d lin g queries and complaints. But he added: “There is still variation in performance across the board, and a number of companies still have some way to go in certain areas.” James Blitz, Westminster Mail disrupted in Scotland P^tel services in and out of Scotland were disrupted as about 5^000 of Roya l Mail's 16,000 staff carried an unofficial strikes against .proposed changes to shift patterns. Contacts were oontmruog between management and the CWU postal union. n , _ _ W ■ — M>V W(T u IA/aidl whteh has tokTits members to end the action. There is a backlog of 12m letters and packages across central Scotland. Sme rrafl is being sent to offices in England to be sorted and returned to Sco tland Andrew Bolger, Employment Correspondent Shine on: Portable traffic lights positioned on a remote Welsh SSL 1 ? *8? H 8 *™P ora ry measure are still in use f?‘^n*f U R Ster “ ttj® Weteh Offlee disclosed in the House of SvRrS 1 ?' He 31 Drws y Nant cost E1BOO ($2,800) a year, but did not state why they were still there. OFFER ON BEHALF OF GRANADA GROUP PLC FOR FORTE IMc Latmi & Co. Im mr i Hdunl Bmbcn") mogacn dnrf If*th I h it u 1**5 Ida -OBci Omunri i**» - Tmrfl -*•— *‘- L - 1 1 — l"*f,ljBMidBniri>cnli»BudE Fane. ttni» *Spw 1 «i ** OBn Oosaam fcra *« «m* n Mah •/ C*4 mAi Crimp FLC i~CiMnnLi i* nn t ik ipfc icd to durrfioUm m Fame PV. 11 ■n rater Ithr "Ottcr“i re Muk of litmiiLi hart -CitrnuLi* 1 rtuj. In m era IWHy* PO 1*,. Boona Hroc, M fcuA RnAoiW Krar BU«TH al CoBafa Ktna on^bi ftt Ac athtnumm taoa med is din JihnmMKi* mJ. h, 4c b™ <4 4m ImU, jod hrWf ikm a* ore to aauedui «Sd5e ad. «di mfcnuioa if b icsaniiaa «ih 4r tun »d ikm W mw ratta* J4rir w jlfcci |he nop an TVooctmift Unc 4c tWrow scad 49ptasn at «D other Brno. For terries j oBtdde Ac UK please tefcpboae +4*171 873 <378 for dct aU oo Gy fine lamanoail FAST 64 'a ▼ FUTURES PACER Watch it 'live' on a Futures Pager Whatever you are doing. 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By Richard Tomkins in New York J Sainsbury, Britain’s biggest food retailer, could be poised to take over Giant Food, the US supermarket chain in which it holds a minority stake, follow- ing the death of Mr Israel Cohen, the US company’s chairman and chief executive. Last year Sainsbury paid 3325m (£205.fim) for 16 per cent of Giant Food’s publicly-traded non-voting stock and 50 per cent of its special voting stock. The other 50 per cent of the voting stock was owned by Mr Cohen, son of one of the co- founders. In his will, Mr Cohen left control of his voting rights to a team comprising bis sister and four senior Giant Food execu- tives. But analysts believe the death of Mr Cohen, who was 63 and had been with the com- pany since its first store opened in 1936, has opened the way for Sainsbury to complete an acquisition. In New York yesterday, on the first day of trading since the announcement of Mr Cohen’s death on Thanksgiv- ing Day, speculation about a takeover triggered an increase of S2Y< in Giant Food's ordinary shares to 334V« - a rise of 8.7 per cent At that price, the company is valued at more than $2bn. Neither Sainsbury nor Giant Food would comment yester- day on the possibility of a take- over. But Mir Gary Vine berg, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, said both parties appeared to be feigning lack of interest In a deal as part of their negotia- ting strategy. “They are jockeying for posi- tions.” Mr Vineberg said. “I think Sainsbury will ulti- mately buy the company, but it could drag on for a while.” Like Shaw’s, the US super- market chain that Sainsbury bought in 1987, Giant Food, based in Washington DC. oper- ates mainly to the north-east Seen as a successful company, it has 164 supermarkets and made net profits of $94 .2m in the year to last February on revenues of $3.7hn. would reduce its investment at flotation. The management team, led by Mr John Nixon, chief execu- tive, made an investment of £500,000 and now has a stake of more than 20 per cent The float will also benefit employ- ees who have recently been able to subscribe for shares. However, the group faces the threat of industrial action by its engineers over a move towards local pay bargaining. Welsh Water strengthens hand with solid results By Christopher Price Welsh Water bolstered its credentials prior to bid talks with Swalec next week by yes- terday reporting a return to profitability of all its nan-regu- lated businesses. The group also unveiled an 1L5 per cent interim dividend increase to 12.6p. Operating profits from continuing operations were flat at £83.3m (£83.1m) for the six months to September 30 on turnover 3 per cent higher at £2695m. Pre-tax profits showed a 63 per cent rise to £80.6m (£49.4m) after last year’s £28.5m of exceptional charges. Some £11 jm of the charge covered rationalisation of the Acer engineering consultancy sub- sidiary, which Mr Graham Hawker, chief executive, said had moved back into the black. Acer, which was heavily involved in motorway repair work, had been hit by a drop to orders. Mr Hawker said the business was now focused on the overseas market and that US military changes behind Radstone loss Radstone Technology yesterday justified the warning delivered at its annual meeting in June as figures for the six months to September 30 . reflected a "difficult and disap- pointing trading period". The group, which supplies open architecture computer subsystems for industrial and defence use, blamed fundamen- tal changes to US military pro- curement as it slumped to pre- tax losses of £2. 63m (profits of £L01m) after exceptional recur • , ganisation costs of £900,000. The shares, floated at 125p in I Febrnary 1994. tumbled 6%p | yesterday to 33’Ap as the 1 interim dividend was passed (0B25p) and Mr Rhys Williams, chairman, held out little pros- pect of a final although he anticipated a return to the black next year. Turnover fell 44 per cent to £8 -33m, reflecting declines of £2. 9m in the US and £L7m in east Asia where a customer deferred a capital pregramme. its order book was strong. Profits before interest to the water and sewerage business slipped from £87.4n to £84.7m as the company counted the cost of the drought In addition to him in the first half, Welsh said drought measures would cost a further Elm to the sec- ond hall Mr Hawker said the return to profitability of all the group’s businesses augured well for the Swalec meeting. "We specialise in infrastruc- ture and utility-related busi- nesses and see great synergies with Swalec in these areas.” He refused to comment on the meeting other than to hope for "meaningful” discussions with the Swalec management Welsh said two weeks ago it was considering an offer for the electricity utility. The two camps met last week and will meet for a second time on Wednesday. Welsh shares fell 5p to 699p yesterday. Earnings per share before exceptional items rose 4 per cent to 57.4p. • COMMENT While yesterday's results were rather a sideshow to Wednes- day's showdown, Welsh Water must have been relieved to see its non-regulated businesses profitable. The hefty provisions the company has had to make against its Acer engineering business have been cited as a reason for not trusting Welsh to run an electricity utility. Otherwise, it provided a solid set of results. The key question for shareholders ahead of the Swalec meeting is: will a take- over enhance value? The answer depends on the price paid. Welsh may be tempted to overpay because of its views on potential geographical, operational and tax savings. More cautious investors, how- ever, will hope that - rather than leap into the unknown - the group walks away. The shares have fallen 8 per cent since the possibility of a bid was announced; without it, Welsh could restore value through share buy-backs and generous dividend payments. Biotrace warns of deepening losses By Motoko Rich Shares in Biotrace plunged 22p to 42p yesterday as the maker of kits to detect microbiologi- cal contamination warned that it was likely to foil deeper into the red in 1995. The group also announced that it had terminated the contract of employment of Mr Brian Levett, its chief executive. Following investment in developing its European and US markets - announced at the interim stage - the group said that the impact of this expansion, coupled with increased competition and expenses incurred on the upgrade of one of its products, was "greater than envisaged to the half year report”. It said it was likely to incur a £L5m loss on flat turnover of £3. 65m. Mr Terry Clements, acting chief executive who joined the board as a non-executive direc- tor in August, said that compe- tition bad tripled over the past year. He said the group had soM systems to the top 15 global food producers and that next year it would “resume the growth pattern we have had”. There had been a greater lag in recovering the cost of expan- sion through sales because competition had caused cus- tomers to delay purchasing decisions, he added. The group ended 1994 with a pre-tax loss of £194,000 against a pro forma profit of £316,000. Mr Clements declined to comment on why Mr Levett’s contract had been terminated, but it is understood that his departure is not directly related to the trading perfor- mance of the group. It is believed that there was a difference of opinion about how the company was run between Mr Lovett and Mr Clements. Amec bids £133m for Alfred McAlpine By Andrew Taylor, Construction Correspondent Amec has launched a £l33m bid for Alfred McAlpine, its rival construction group. The bid came after Kvaemer, the Norwegian shipbuilding and engineering group, raised its stake in Amec to 12 per cent to a dawn raid on Thursday. Amec is offering two shares for each McAlpine; there is no cash alternative. Amec is unlikely to proceed without the support of McAlpine directors. However. McAlpine said yes- terday it would not respond until the outcome of discus- sions between Amec and Kvaemer became known. It pointed out that Amec’s share price had risen by almost a quarter following Kvaemer’s move and that any sharp change in tbe price would materially influence the value of the bid to McAlpine share- holders. Mr Erik Tonseth, Kvaemer chief executive, said he had been “surprised, puzzled and embarrassed” by Amec's move. He had met Sir Alan Cock- s haw, Amec chairman, on Thursday but had received no indication that the bid was in the offing, even though Kvaemer was Amec’s second largest shareholder. He said that the offer implied a value on Amec shares of 60p- 70p, compared with the lOOp paid by Kvaemer, "so that is a small shock”. Amec’s shares, which on Thursday had risen from 78p to 99p, slipped back yesterday to 96p, valuing the company at £194m. McAlpine's shares rase Z8p to I59p, valuing it at EllOm. Mr Tonseth yesterday declined to rule out a full bid far Amec saying his company was considering all options. He said the only part of Amec that Kvaemer would not be inter- ested to would be its UK house- building business. Kvaemer has pledged not to pay more than the lOOp offered in the dawn raid. Amec said it would be pre- pared to consider joint ven- tures with Kvaerner, but would not cede control at a price which it considered undervalued its prospects with a number of large interna- tional orders in tbe pipeline. It said a merger with McAlpine would reduce overca- pacity in the construction industry and increase its housebuilding interests - a market expected to recover next year. Improved Amberley expands By Motoko Rich Amberley Group, the minerals and speciality chemicals maker. Is paying £9.5m in shares to acquire Bou afield Printing Products, the private Bristol-based manufacturer. The acquisition will more than double sales by Amberley, which yesterday announced turnover up 48 per cent to £7.7m to the six months to Sep- tember. Pre-tax profits rose 67 percent to £920,000 (£552,000). The group, listed to July, issued 15.5m new shares, of which VL5m were placed with institutions at 61p. raising £8 2m for the vendors. Amber- ley will also pay £2. 96m owed to the Bousfield Children's Trust Gearing will be 30 per cent, including £3m borrow- ings taken on with Bousfield. It will also issue 1.9m shares to raise £i.2m for purchase costs and working capital Mr Brian Meddings, finan ce director, said Bousfield had spent £3.7m on new plant which was only r unning at 80 to 40 per cent capacity. 11 made pre-tax profits of £i.4m on turnover of £l8.4m to the year to March 3L Amberley’s earn- ings rose to L39p CL16p) and the dividend is 0.3p (OJ25p). Domino Printing warns again By Paul Taylor Shares in Domino Printing Sciences fell sharply yesterday after the Cambridge-based ink jet printer manufacturer issued its second profits warning in 10 weeks. It has been hit by restructuring charges and the cost of supporting customers affected by tprhniral problems. Domino's shap es , which fell sharply from 5§5p in Septem- ber after tbe first wanting, closed 42p lower at 392p yester- day. The company said it intended to maintain the final dividend at 6.4p. In September, it warned that second-half profits were unlikely to match the first half. Technical difficulties involving poor quality ink supplies had affected about 8.000 of its 42,000 1 install ed machines. At that stage, Domino esti- mated that tire direct costs of solving the problems would be £L5m. Yesterday, however, Mr Howard Whitesmith, managing director, admitted that this estimate had been too low. “Our customers have been receiving good product for some time without problems." he said, but the additional costs of supporting them through the technical difficul- ties were estimated at £3m. Tbe company would also take a £2m charge to cover restructuring costs, including 60 redundancies. The group’s PackTrack operations in the US have been refocused and the bulk of its Control Print operations con- solidated to Chicago, saving an estimated £1.5m a year. UK overheads have been reduced by catting 85 Jobs. Analysts yesterday down- graded pre-tax profit estimates for the year to October 31 from £8£m to about 25m (£13m). Mr Whitesmith added that “sales are still increasing”. Domino Printing Sciences Share price (pence) 580 500 480 480 _ y~r\. Jun Soma FT Extol 1 8 FINANCIAL TIMES WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25/NOVEMBER 26 1995 INTERNATIONAL COMPANIES AND FINANCE Atlas Copco up 44% in third term but slowing By Christopher Brown -Humes in Stockholm .Atlas Copco yesterday became tbe latest Swedish industrial group to report slower third- quarter growth, but it stood by a previous forecast that its full- year figures would be consider- ably better than last year. The engineering group - a core company in the Wallen- berg family's industrial empire - reported third-quarter profits up 44 per cent from SKr458m to SKrti59m (SlOlru). But nine- month profits climbed a more robust 57 per cent to SKr2.05bn. taking the group past the SKrl.95bn profit achieved for the whole of 1994. Atlas said demand had slowed in the third quarter, particularly for smaller stan- dard machines and expendable goods. But the pattern in the first nine months was more varied, with higher demand for large industrial and portable com- pressors and mining equip- ment compensating for weak construction demand and dis- 8y Richard Waters In New York The head of Bankers Trust's derivatives operations has left to join a private US investment group, further eroding the New York bank's senior manage- ment team. Mr Brian Walsh was a close associate of Mr Charles San- ford, the bank's chairman , who will retire early next year. Mr Eugene Shanks, the bank's president, resigned after he lost out in tbe race to succeed Mr Sanford, while Mr Tim Yates, chief financial officer, has also announced p lans to retire. Mr Walsh has resigned to take up a position with the pri- vate investment organisation run by Mr Robert Bass, who made his name in the financial appointing electric tool sales in Europe. The group expects demand for large capital equip- ment from manufacturing industries to continue rising. Nine-month sales rose 17 per cent to SKrl?.8bn while operat- ing profits increased 46 per cent from SKrl-31bn to SKrl.91bn. The group’s biggest division - compressors - lifted operating profits from SKrl.Q2bn to SKrl.26bn as sales rose from SKr7J22bn to SKr8J36bn. Orders grew 17 per cent to SKria.7bn - 13 per cent if the recent acquisition of Milwau- kee Electric Tool Carp of the US is excluded. The S55Qm Milwaukee pur- chase strengthens the Swedish group's operations in electric tools and enhances a previ- ously weak position in the North American market But the group's accounting treat- ment of the goodwill portion of the deal has provoked contro- versy. It is amortising the SRzSbn goodwill element over 40 years, deviating from the Swedish norm of 20 years. markets with a series of lever- aged buy-outs. Under Mr Walsh, Bankers Trust's derivatives operations had led its push to become the leader in the growing risk management industry. This involves flrarignmg and selling finan cial instruments which make it easier for companies or investors to adjust exposure to interest rate, currency or other market risks. Mr Walsh's departure comes in the middle of an indepen- dent investigation into Bank- ers Trust’s derivatives busi- ness, prompted by allegations that it had misled some of its derivatives customers. Bankers Trust said Mr Walsh's resignation "was entirely Brian's initiative’’ and was unrelated to troubles in the derivatives business. Nintendo Share price rotative to the Nikkei 225 Average m — Nintendo sets April date for 64-bit launch By MSchiyo Nakamoto in Tokyo Nintendo, Japan’s leading video games maker, is launch- ing its long-awaited advanced 64-bit video games machine next April. Nintendo's share price responded to the news yester- day by rising Y200 to Y7,56Q . Its share price had dropped sharply on speculation that the launch of the new machine was being delayed. However, the April launch does repre- sent a delay, because Nintendo initially said it would launch the new machine this year. The 64-bit machine, which offers high-quality graphics and allows users to alter the software, is expected to help the Nintendo hit back at its rivals. They have introduced video games machines with more advanced technology than Nintendo's Super Fami- con, a 1 6-hit nmchinp known abroad as the Super Nintendo Rntortarinment System. Sony and Sega have both launched popular 32-bit video games machines and sales Of Nintendo's machines have slipped. The system will be sold for Y25.000 ($248), which is signifi- cantly lower than the prices of Sony and Sega’s machines. Mr Akiyoshl Hayakawa, ana- lyst at Nikko Research Center, expected Nintendo to sell 2m to 2.5m units in the first year and to gain ground against rivals. Nevertheless, he said Nin- tendo would not be able to increase profits next year since the low price it was nharging meant the company would probably lose money on the hardware. A further fall in sales of the Super Famicon would also eat into profits. Bankers Trust head of derivatives quits Quality gap widens between weak and strong* Leading Japanese banks gear up to show pedigree by jettisoning bad-debt problems T here was a time when Japanese banks' results revealed little that was new or different. Moving in convoy, year after year all the leading companies tended to report remarkably similar prof- its (never losses! and balance sheets. Yesterday’s results for the six months to the end of September showed just how far they have come from those tranquil days. The figures revealed a clear widening of the gap between the strongest banks and the weakest, and suggested that the cohesive nature of the Japanese financial system may have broken down for good. The results produced the clearest evidence yet that the stronger banks are gearing up to wipe out the non-performing loan problem quickly, leaving the ailing banks struggling to keep up. This is the first time that the 11 city banks have owned up to figures that give a fairer picture of their non-performing loans. In the past they have confined themselves to reporting only loans to bankrupt borrow er s and those with interest more than six months overdue. But this time they have moved into line with international practice and given estimates for the total value of restructured loans - where interest rates have been cut to keep a borrower from bankruptcy. The estimates are still likely , hauf-year unto# jAwa^qT»alM«i» Sanwa - . Dantchi Kangyo TPujJY , --A- . / .,-v; Swn&orne \ . AaaW_?,A Total. S-V ; •Qahm; ' a- u ; - vfisBikot.toJqp^jY. Tatar .-I' J ■ ; . : V2900 M103J ?:lfr li JBjKuptog> : •• Jartflt- W fatal' forecast ted recurring u.-s'eas n-’&at ?--fr*ss,n sir" . sowce CwowSM to be greeted with some scepticism in financial markets, but they give a clearer idea of the scale of the banks' problems. On one indicator at least, all 11 banks were alike . Their operating profits rase sharply, mainly as a result of the low interest rates that have produced large profits on banks' bond trading in the last year. Combined operating profits at the 11 city banks were more than 7n per cent higher than m the same period a year earlier. The most impressive performance was, by a curious irony, at Daiwa Bank, which manag ed to increase operating profits by 121 per cent Daiwa also recorded the highest level of recurring profits - before tax and extraordinary items - though this appears to have been largely the result of the bank’s failure to write off more than a fraction of its non-performing loans. Most banks did not in fact move a g gressively to write off non-performing loans in the At the 11 banks combined loan loss reserves are equal to only 26 per cent of all problem debt i half-year. Sanwa allowed itself to register a recurring loss as a result of its continuing heavy write-offs, and is now one of a handful of hawks clearly in sight of the firriahTWg Imp for removing the asset quality problem, along with Mitsubishi Rank and Bank of Tokyo (which are to merge next year) and TOkai Bank. Other banks seem to be preparing to make big write-offs in the next six months. ■ For the 11 banks, combined loan loss reserves were equal to only 26 per cent of all problem loans, and for one or two lenders the problems are especially acute. Hokkaido Takushoku. by for the weakest of the group, recorded a small recurring profit But it revealed that its total non-performing loans, including those restructured, are now at least Y973bn ($9.67bn), or more than 13 per cent of its total lending. In an effort to stay afloat, the bank aims to write off a substantial number of bad loans tn the next six months. and is therefore forecasting a recurring loss of YiMbn for the full year to next March. Its restructuring programme, announced last week, also bww for deep cuts in expenses. Daiwa is another bank with . real difficulties. Its decision to write off few of its problem . loans this year to enable it to cover its disastrous losses in New York leaves it with non-performing assets: of Y852bn. or 7 per cent of total lending. - Banks’ forecasts for the full year to next March demonstrate that all are planning to make even deeper’ inroads into their bad loans. The most dramatic example is Fuji, which will write off more' " than Y400bn in the coming half-year. But in doing so it should eliminate the vast bulk of its bad debts, which currently stand at the highest level of any of the institutions. However, other banks could yet move to follow Fuji's example. Next .month . the government will unveil plans to liquidate the country’s seven bankrupt housing loan companies, which owe more than YT.OOQbn to the leading: hnnks If. as seems likely, the banks are forced to write off most of that loss, the stronger ones will choose to do so immediately, further emphasising the gap in quality . between them and their * struggling brethren. Gerard Baker Pancon to offer non-gold assets Sumitomo set to buy Daiwa’s US interests By Nikki Tart in Sydney Shareholders in Pancon- tinental Mining formally agreed on Friday to put the group’s principal non-gold assets up for auction. The first indicative offers are expected by the end of next week, and the date for final bids is December 22. Pancon was taken over by Goldfields, a new company formed by Renison Gold Fields, the mining group in which Britain's Hanson has a 40 per cent interest, earlier this year. Renison intended to put its own gold assets, plus those of Pancon, into Goldfields and to transfer Pancon's non-gold assets bade to Renison. Although Goldfields, which was used to make the bid for Pancon, gained an 87.6 per cent stake in its target, it needed 90 per cent to be entitled to mop up minorities. As a result, the non-gold assets could not be automatically transferred harfc to Renison. However, Renison has indicated that it intends to be amongst the bidders for these businesses, which encompass magnesite, zinc and coal, and have been tipped to fetch in excess of A$400m (US$296). - • Mayue Ntekless, the Austra- lian transportation, security and healthcare group, has appointed as its managing director Mr Robert Dalziel, who Is managing director of discount department stares for Coles Myer, Australia’s biggest retailer. Mayne, which is undergoing restructuring - especially on the security side - has been looking for a new chief execu- tive since Mr Bill Bytheway quit in June after “differences with the hoard". Mr Dalziel, who has been with Coles since the early 1960s, will take up his new post on January 22. By Gerard . Baker in Tokyo Sumitomo Bank said yesterday it was prepared to buy all the US assets of Daiwa Bank under a business co-operation agree- ment between the two hanks. Mr Yoshifumi Nishikawa, Sumitomo's senior manag in g director said Sumitomo had begun talks with Daiwa over the disposal of its US assets two weeks ago and broad agreement was hoped for by early next month. The bank will need approval from US regulators under interstate banking restrictions before it starts business in New York State, but it hopes eventually to receive all Dai- wa’s assets in the US. The two banks denied reports that their plans for a merger had been shelved. Daiwa was ordered by the US Federal Reserve earlier this month to dispose of all its US operations by February 2. In addition to Daiwa’s and its subsidiaries' branches in the US. these include 15 offices acquired from Britain’s Lloyds Bank five years ago. COMPANY NEWS: UK Casino swing lifts London Clubs By Motoko Rich London Clubs International continued to reduce its depen- dence on high roller casinos as it raised pre-tax profits 18 per cent from £ 16.3m to £19.3m In the six months to September 34. The casino operator which lost its largest shareholder when the Barclay brothers, the UK property tycoons, sold their entire stake last month, said the proportion of profit con- tributed by upmarket casinos dropped from 79 per cent to 69 per cent. Mr Alan Goodenough. chief executive, said: “This is encouraging because we have seen an even more rapid advance in the mid to low level casinos." Turnover increased from ESI. 7m to £865m. Mr Gooden- ough said nil of the group's London-based casinos per- formed ahead of last year, except Les Ambassadeurs. a high roller club, which hit record profits last year. Summer trading at the Carl- ton Casino m Cannes was depressed by the strength af the franc, but higher atten- dance at the group's casino in Taba. Egypt, prompted an expansion of the premises. The group had reduced the number of cruise ships on which it ran casinos. Interest charges dropped to £515,000 (£1.8m). largely due to flotation proceeds. Mr Goodenough said the introduction or stud poker at the beginning of the calendar year, following a relaxation of government regulations, had been received enthusiastically. However, he expressed disap- pointment that further relax- ations were stuck in a “parlia- mentary log-jam". He said: “It is a question of becoming internationally com- petitive and frankly, moving into the 20th century.” Earnings per share fell to 17.7p (21. lp). On a pro-forma basis, earnings rose from 163p to 17.7p. The interim dividend is raised to 5p (A25p). • COMMENT The increase in the group’s dividend added substance to its confident claims about second half prospects. The decreasing dependence on the high rollers supports its earning power by reducing its exposure to these highly volatile casinos, without taking it into areas where the National Lottery would eat into revenues. There is more growth to come from the Lon- don Park Tower casino, acquired earlier this year, and its Egyptian operation. The group has also won a contract to run a casino in Beirut, which it says will be its biggest single operation. While there is always a chance that London Clubs International could have a bumpy year, its medium term prospects are good. Pre- tax profit forecasts range from £32m-£37m for the year to March, putting the shares - up lp to 410p - on a forward p/e of between 12 and 14.7. With good support from a prospective 4.6 per cent yield, there could be bigger winnings to come. NEWS DIGEST Grampian TV ahead to £2.9m Grampian Television, tbe north of Scotland television contractor, lifted interim pre- tax profits by 62 per cent from £lBm to £2.92m. Turnover for the half year to August 31 rose by 25 per cent to £ 12.7m. The increase was helped by a 10 per cent rise in advertising revenue, against a 7.7 per cent advance in ITV network advertising. Earnings per share were up from a restated 4p to 5£p and an interim dividend of 1.25p (adjusted lp) is declared Latham tumbles James Latham, the building materials group, saw' pre-tax profits tumble from £l.l4m to £781.000 for the six months to September 30. although turn- over on continuing operations edged up from £40.4m to £40 Mr David Latham, chairman, said that while all three of the group's trading activities had contributed to profits, the interim outcome was below expectations. Earnings per share fell to I0.75p (I6.6lp) but the interim dividend is held at 2£5p. Osborne & Little Osborne & Little, tbe designer and distributor of fine furnish- ings. fabrics and wallpapers, lifted pre-tax profits by 12 per cent from £i-51m to £1.69m in the half year to September 30. Turnover for the company, winch makes 60 per cent of its sales overseas, rose 9 per cent to £l2itaL Sir Peter Osborne, chairman, said the group had experienced difficult trading conditions in its principal markets of North America, the UK and continen- tal Europe. The interim dividend is raised lp to A5p, payable from earnings of I6.93p (I5.15p) per share. : Stoddard Sekers Stoddard Sekers International, the carpets and furnishing fab- rics company, blamed low con- sumer confidence and a sub- dued housing market as it lapsed into losses in the six months to September 30 and halved the interim dividend. The shares fell 3V4p to 23p yesterday. On turnover down 11 per cent at £25.9m. losses amnnntw! to £825,000 against pre-tax profits last time of £565,000. Tbe figures were in marked contrast to those of rival concern Tomkinsons which on Thursday revealed a 58 per cent jump in annual profits on sales ahead just fi per cent Losses per share were 1.2p (earnings of 0.5p) and the interim dividend is 0.375p. Dart improves Improved trading in its avia- tion services and distribution companies helped Bourne- mouth-based Dart Group lift pre-tax profits from £1.44m to £2h2m in the half year to Sep- tember 30. Turnover was ahead to £35m (£27.5m). Mr Philip Meeson, chairman _ said the acquisition last year of Fowler Welch had enhanced Dart's capacity to provide a service to the leading super- market chains, while building on traditional wholesale mar- kets. The company was Looking for farther acquisitions and aimed to become the UK's lead- ing distributor of fresh produce and flowers. Earning s per share came out at &9p (6.5p) and the interim dividend is raised to L9p (L5p). First Choice capacity reduced by further 7% By Roderick Oram, Consumer Industries Editor First Choice Holidays, the UK’s third largest tour operator, has cut its 1996 holiday capacity by a further 7 per cent because bookings continue to run well below last year's levels. Airtours and Thomson, the leading operators, said yester- day they too were continuing to shave capacity. First Choice also announced who resigned two weeks ago as finance director of Proudfoct, the management consul tants Mr Heald had indicated to the board earlier in. the year that he "wished to pursue his career outside the travel indus- try." tbe group said. Since Mr Heald had resigned, he would receive no compensation By Geoff Dyer St James's Place Capital, the financial services group run by Lord Rothschild and Sir Mark Weinberg, recorded a 7 per cent fell in first half pre-tax profits from £16J5m to £15.4m. However, net assets per share grew to 87.6p (84-lp) and the shares closed up 2p at ii7p. Income from participating interests increased to £5 -3m, reflecting a maiden £2.7m con- tribution from life Assurance although the board's remuner- ation committee might con- sider an ex-gratia payment for his services. The City welcomed the fur- ther capacity cut which follows a 9 per cent reduction when First Choice launched a rights issue last month. Airtours and Thomson, which reduced capacity when they launched their 1996 brochures, both said yesterday they were continu- ing to tighten simply. problem of over-capacity,” one analyst said. Operators had raised their 1996 prices by -between 8 per cent and 12 per cent to try to rebuild their margins. But cou- pled with a lack of consumer confidence, the move resulted in a 25-30 per cent decline in bookings this autumn. “We, like tbe industry, are Holding Corporation, the life company which opened in December in which St James has a 31.2 per cent stake. The company was designed to acquire life companies, dose them to new business and manage their eriating funds. At the end of September it had 400.000 policyholders and £ 1 . 6 bn policyholder funds. Other big shareholders include New York Ufa Worldwide, a subsidiary of the fourth largest life insurance company in the acting to ensure that late sea- son discounting for summer 1996 is kept under control by cutting our on-sale capacity now in response to difficult trading conditions,” Mr Fran- cis Baron, First Choice chief executive, said yesterday. To help reduce casts and capacity, the group said it would cut 126 full-time and 200 seasonal jobs, representing 49 per cent and 13 per cent of tbe respective staffs, and it has sub-leased two more aircraft to other carriers. Referring to Mr Heald, one analyst said he was “very ana- lyst and investor friendly, rm disappointed he’s going”. “Having had- a huge change in management [in recent years], a period of stability would have been a good idea," said another analyst. Td be a bit happier if First Choice had found a replacement with some travel industry experience.” to £15.4m US, and Scottish Amicable. Profits from J Rothschild Assurance fell to Elm (£3.4m). Mr Ron Bell, group financial controller, said this reflected the downturn across the indus- try. Funds under management grew to £L.25bn (£lbn). Profits from the investment portfolio fell to film (Ei3.3m) and fund management profits declined to £3.7m (£44m). The interim dividend is maintained at 1.5p. Earhings dropped to 39p (4.3p). Three eye Lloyd’s List deal By Christopher Price Three potential bidders for Lloyd's of London Press have been confirmed by tbe owners, Lloyd's insurance market, which invited offers for the publishing group earlier this month. The Economist group is the latest to emerge as an inter- ested party for the publisher of Lloyd’s List, tbe shipping and insurance newspaper. Other suitors include Emap, tbe media and conference group, and the management of Lloyd's of London Press, which is considering a buy-out and has been talking to ven- ture ca pitalis ts Lloyd's List, founded in 1734, is the UK's oldest daOy newspaper. Lloyd's announced the sale in May as part of a plan to secure the 300-year-old market's future. Analysts have put a value on the publishing subsidiary of between £50m and £70m. In 1994 the group made pre-tax & profits of £4.4m on sales of0fr £33. 6m. Besides Lloyd's List, it publishes a range of specialist insurance and marine -maga- zines and books. Lloyd’s has not yet decided if it wonld allow another organisation to use its name on a publication, although without such a title the value of the group would be reduced. While confirming the three potential candidates, Lloyd's said they were among several inquiries. No timescale has been put on the sale. the resignation of Mr Malco l m “This shows a surprising Heald, its finance director well determination on the part of respected by the City- He is the operators to address their replaced by Mr David Gill, 38, St James’s Place falls n*4»K Conan JBynwnl (f ter of payaM ■ Dividends Tou tor loot tut wr w Ambotajr . 6 mflg to Sept 30 Cambridge Water 8 mite to Sept 30 Part 6 mtha to Sept 30 Grampian TV 6 mite to Aug 31 Latham (James) 6 irths to Sqit 30 London Dubs kill 8 rmts ID Sept 24 MW>$ .8 mtlis ft Sept» Osborne & UtSo Broths to Se* 30 QrtpU§ 8 mthe to Sspt 30 RadstBM Tech 6 mths to Sept 30 St Janes's Place' S mfla to Sept 30 SEC Group Trio Sept 30 Swboart Stoddard Satars tautb water — .8 mths to Sept 30 . 8 mthc to Sept 30 .6 mths to Sept 30 780 (591 ) 092 7.79 (7.47) 237 35 (273) 292 12J no.i ) 292 409 (484) 0.781 88J5 (81-7) 193 03 (-) 0.14 128 P1-7) 199 633 (735) 098lf 833 (14-7) 283L* - (-1 15.4 273 (183 ) 1.18 5129 0»3) 39.4 259 (299) 092SL 2883 (2599 ) 80.3 Investment Trusts (0552) (2-72) €1-44 ) fi-81 ) fl-14 ) (153) H fi-51 ) (0-23) fun i (IGJj ) (1-13) ' (3351 (0-565 ) (4844) ttribetaue &n*>m cam 1-39 512 89 59 10.75 17.7t 2.3 1893 093t 13.43L 39 5 .It 113 I-2L 574 0-18 ) (500) (85) m ) C1091 ) (21.1 ) () (15.15) (059 1 (398 ) (43) (543) P-1 ) (03 I (330 ) TR Property EPS W .8 mite to Sept 30 343 (389 ) 0.3 175 19 1-25 • 295 5 0.8 4.5 nil n8 13 295 nu 0375 128 Curran payment tt FWj 31 Jan 2 Jan 12 Jan 17 Feto a Jan 31 Dec 21 Jan 24 Dec 22 Jan 3 Jen 5 Her 4 Dak ot 396 P-48) 095 125 1.5 r 295 495 3.5 HD 0925 1-5 2 4 0.75 93 teraaponrSep dMdeM 871 [0,61 ) wssirasisiaswasr - * ~ 042 09 3.75 Tea lor year 195 275 4.6 4iP 6 1395 -13.5# nB 3.3 ' 3 15 149 1.6 339 Tnni m -frl 8 04 0.94 □ teased -After aeoertng tar acnp taw. ?Wter ^ z'/ FINANCIAL TIMES m i !m !ils\ ’*W. i I : ! w , ! ■ » i v i W : fe V 4 i \ ■ ' r . • • • • V j !■ « •- week in the markets ) Lead prices buoyant as stocks fail Lead was again the star performer at the London Metal Exchange this week as concern about tightening supplies rawe prices to Eve year hiwh« nnd widened the cash premi- ums. A 4,300-tonne fall in LME warehouse stocks reported yes- terday took the total decline on the week to $350 tonnes, or 4£ per cent, to 173.075 tonnes. That was enough to prompt a rise of (13 in the three months delivery position to $73-150 a tonne and one of (19.50 far WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25/NOVEMBER 26 1995 COMMODITIES AND AGRICULTURE (As at Thursday, dose) AkimSVum +1X26 to 605X90 +540 to 52X80 Copper +5.T75 10 218.890 -4X00 to 173X75 -208 10 47X32 -2.725 10 680X26 +210 to 12XB0 •M cash metal, to $766. With little chart-based resistance expec- ted on the upside a move up to (750 a tonne was possible, some analysts told the Reuters news agency. Battery producers, who account for about 60 per cent of lead demand, were warned what might be in store during last month's London Metals Week, when Mr Chris Torrible of the CRU International con- sultancy said that lead stocks might soon approach histori- cally tight levels equivalent to only five weeks of consump- tion. When that last happened in 1989. he said, u we had a boom in prices'*. Other base metals were gen- erally steady, notably nickel, which yesterday gained $55 in the three months position to $8,747.50 a tonne, despite news of a smaUer-than-expected fall in LME stocks. The gain on the week was $252.50. After a modest rally yester- day three months copper ended with a small gain cm the week and nearby supply tightness kept the cash/three months premium at a very high $235.50 WEEKLY PRICE CHANGES a tonne. As consumer interest contin- ued to pick up the three months aluminium mice re nr- tablished itself above Urn d,700-a-tonne level Resistance at $1,715 held and the market had to be content with a (39 rise on the week to $1,713.50. But London broker GNI suggested in its daily market report yesterday that “alumin- ium still has a good chance of edging up in the Short term before running into resis- tance. . . (1,750 is a target, although some Identify seDing in the $1,720/30 area". At the Loudon Bullion Mar- ket the gold price resumed last week's overall downward trend. A bout of Far Eastern selling late in the week sent it towards $382 a troy ounce, but support buying believed to be on behalf of a producing coun- try central bank stopped the rot and the price an^ yester- day at $388.60 an ounce, up $3-35 on the day but down $&90 an the week. The silver market aim stead- ied a little late in the week after crashing through a well- established support level on Wednesday. Under pressure from long-liquidation it dipped to $5.15 at one stage before ending the week at $5J24’/,, down 10 cents on balance. The London Commodity Exchange robusta coffee mar- ket came under renewed pres- sure this week but growing concern about a dearth of sup- plies available for early deliv- ery led to a further widening in the spot premiums. Despite ris- ing $18 yesterday the January futures position registered a fall on the week of $117 a tonne; but the prompt Novem- ber position ended $51 up on the week at $2,529 a tonne, extending the premium to $340. Traders were said to cau- tious ahead of next week’s meeting in Bali of the Associa- tion of Coffee Producing Coun- tries. An ACPC official said that it would make sense to extend the groups export reten- tion scheme past next June, when it is scheduled to end, but traders thought that was unlikely. “I don't see how they finance the plan already,” one told Reuters. Rfchanl Mooney Latest prices Change on week ago 1906 High Lsw Gold per troy OZ- 5383.60 -3.90 $384.00 S394 $373 Silver per trey oz 33&2Sp -9X5 330.50p 375XDP 267.00p Aluminum 99.739 (cash) Si 680.0 +42.0 SI 966.00 S214S.50 SI 609X0 Copper Gtade A (cash) S2S97.5 ■6.0 $2330.00 $3216.00 $270250 Lend (anti) 5766.0 +43.0 $077.00 $768.00 *53650 Ntcfel (cash) S8630 +250 $7600 $10160 $89475 Zmc SHQ (cash) S1034.Q +7X S1 176.0 S1208J 59560 Tin (cash) S8395.0 +20.0 36200.0 S717SX $5095.0 Cocoa Futures Dec S016 -19 $964 SI 050 $830 CcflM Futures Nov $2413 -65 S32B3 $3297 $2354 Sugar (LDP Raw) S303X -1J5 3337 X S37ai $2897 Bariey Futures Nov Si 18.00 +1.00 $1(075 S12OX0 $102.00 whew Futures Jan S12720 510540 $128.00 $111X0 Colton Outlook A index BOXOc -0.10 78.10c 116.60c 85X5C Wool (84a Super) 444p -8 460p 532p 452p 00 (Brant BtoreQ si&eaz -0X1 S1B.73Z SI 9.01 S15X5 Pw farm untaae Mhandm rawed- p Prawari®. c (M lb. * Joe. WORLD BOND PRICES BENCHMARK GOVERNMENT BONDS Rsd Db/b Coupon DOB PrtCB dwnpft YUM Wwk Month ■00 ago Australia Austria Botgtum Canada* DonmorV Franca BTAN OAT Garmony Bund Inland ttoJy japan No 128 NO 174 Nethertantis POftUQOl Spam Swodon UKGhs US Treasury ■ ECU (French Govt) London ckmng. -Now Yarik mto-dwr T firm (feKtettelO ta* * 12S Ant U& UCin JSnct UMnm ' 7500 07106 94.4800 +0550 855 6S0 630 8500 11AM 985300 +6153 671 678 7X0 8500 03/05 962200 +0500 678 680 7.08 8.750 12AM 1095500 +0.510 754 752 7 SI 7X00 12AM 97X200 +6400 7X2 757 7 SI 7.750 (MAX) 1063750 +0550 6X4 612 686 7.780 10/05 105X800 ♦0570 8X0 697 756 6.500 10/05 101.7800 +6180 855 630 857 exso 1QAM 915800 -0050 752 7.73 853 10500 09/05 855700 +6100 1125T 1150 11.80 6400 03/00 1205810 +0160 158 1.42 150 4.600 09AM 1135780 +0580 2.68 2,75 2.71 6750 HAS 1035600 +0500 858 635 852 11.875 02/05 1085800 +0X30 1041 10.77 1151 TO. 150 01AM 97.4200 +6490 1059 1057 16X8 8X00 02AJ5 02.6030 +0530 682 9X6 642 aooo 12/00 104-01 +3/32 7X3 7.13 7.83 6500 12/05 108-00 +7/32 753 7.73 615 9X00 10/08 109-29 +8/32 7.77 758 625 5.875 11/05 99-22 +1/32 5.92 690 698 S57S 06/25 108-10 +14/32 625 653 851 7500 04AM 1025900 +0540 7.15 758 7.78 Ytefee r rent pwrabte tr tunmkmm) 3orara* MMS ha mHanl ECONOMIC DIARY - FORWARD EVENTS MONDAY: US existing home sales (October). Start of Euro- pean Union Mediterranean countries conference in Barce- lona. EU finance ministers meeting in Brussels. Great Lakes summit in Cairo with presidents of Zaire, Uganda, Tanzania. Rwanda and Burundi. Seminar in Jakarta on transmigration attended by 13 countries (to Nov 29). TUESDAY: Mr Kenneth Clarke, chancellor of the exchequer, presents budget Major British banking groups' mortgage lending during October, us comsumer confidence (Novem- ber). French industry survey (November). Spain todustral output (September). Pacific Rim Forum begins in Bangkok ito Dec 3). French general strike called by FO trade union against reform of welfare sys- tem. Fourth ministerial meet- ing for zone of peace co-operation in the Atlantic to be held m Smith Africa. Burmese junto hokto national convention of elected and non-elected representa- tives to help draft new Bur- mese convention. European parliament holds mini*sesaon i.. n-.-Mle (until NoV©Hjbef 30). WEDNESDAY: OECD report on US economy. US durable goods (October). Japan retail sales and industrial production (Sep- tember). France GDP (third quarter). Mr Bill Clinton, US president, starts visit to Britain and Ireland. Nato defence minis ters meeting in Brussels {to Nov 30). Italy and Spain attend bilateral summit in Palermo. Parliamentary elections in E&ypt- THURSDAY: Economic trends (November). Economic trends animal supplement (1996). Energy trends for October. New vehicle registrations (October). Welsh local govern- ment financial statistics (1995). Bilateral talks between Pan- ama and US over the future of the Panama Canal EU health ministers meet in Brussels. Bundesbank council meets. Conservative Party women's conference in London. FRIDAY: UK visible trade (Sep- tember); toll monetary statis- tics (November). US GDP (third quarter-preliminary); NAPM survey (November). Confer- ence on drug money launder lag in Buenos Airies (until Decembers). j [ wMAWET HEW S UPMTB W HSS A MY M TUE MARKETS*! BASE METALS LONDON METAL EXCHANGE (PrteoB from Amalgamated Motor Trading] ■ ALUMMUM, 99.7 PURITY (S per tonne) Precious Metals continued GRAINS AND OIL SEEDS ■ WHEAT LC€ P pw tomej SOFTS MEAT AND LIVESTOCK Cash Ckxu 18795-805 Prataus 1678-77 Hghftnv 1681 AM OlficU 16815-82-5 Kerb dose Open K. 226,176 Total dally tumovsr 38553 ■ ALUMINIUM ALLOY 0 per tonne) 3 irdhs 1713-14 1710-11 171571704 1713*14 17125-13.0 Ctona 1400-10 1443-48 Previous 1395-406 1435-46 High/low 1445/1440 AM OlfldM 1402-10 1442-45 Kerb ctom 1440-45 Open InL 4X24 Total detfy tumovor 2,159 ■ LEAD 00 partoma) Ctorw 785-87 734-35 Prevtous 7455-75 721-22 HlghAow 77S//71 739/734 AM Official 7725-73 739-40 Kerb dose 730-2 Opan InL 31X63 Total daDy tumovsr 3.720 ■ NICKEL C$ par tore) Ciosa BSZS^SB 8745-50 Prevtous 8470-80 8090-95 HfeVtow 8630 0750/8710 AM Official 8620-30 8726-30 Kerb ctose 8720-30 Open InL 44500 Total daBy turnover ■ TW (S per tonne) 7557 Ctose 6390-400 6415-20 Prevtous 8400-ID 6430-39 tflgh/low 6430/6390 AM OfflcW 6400406 6425-30 Kerb dOSS 6410-20 Open fat. 18X64 Total dafly turnover 5X23 ■ ZINC, special high grads (S per tonne) Ctose 10335-345 1057-58 Previous 1029-30 1053-54 HlgfVtow 1039 1062/1 054 AM Official 10385-39 1061-62 Kerb dose 1056-7 Open Int 81/09 Total daiy turnover ptigg ■ COPPSt, grade A (Spar tonne) Ctose 2985-90 2751-53 Previous 2864-69 2741-42 Htfi/tow 26564/2973 2758/2744 AM Official 2062-84 2754-55 Kerb doss 2758-9 Open fen. 172X28 Toted daily turnover 36X06 Sett Dofw Open Sett foen 1 sett nejfl Open 8m Dey*a Dpea price chuflP ■ah tow W U pries cfesms ngb Lew M M prtae i etange Hgb Low vet let Pita change Ugh law M fere Ito* 381X -32 384X 384.0 12 11 Jn 127X0 _ 12720 12380 80 2.168 Dee 816 -3 917 814 1.471 6457 Dee 67.475 +0.100 57.750 87200 3X45 20X6 DSC 382.1 -33 386X MIX 31,615 46X08 far 12925 -0.10 12330 12380 134 2444 Mar 954 -2 B55 952 885 38220 fob 87400 -0.025 07X50 67.175 2X88 24X01 fob 3835 -34 387X 3835 12XG6 3721B mm 13120 -0X8 13120 13050 233 3X48 Hay 973 972 970 108 15X81 /for 67.175 -0X25 67400 67100 1X60 14X42 for 385.7 -34 3802 3852 1X07 8X85 JM 13315 — 134.00 13375 35 280 JW 902 800 009 30 6X09 Aw 63400 - B3X75 83.325 622 3221 Jm 388-1 -34 301.8 3830 913 18,711 Sep 11450 - - - - 50 Sep 1012 _ 1011 1009 58 26X37 MB 61X75 +0X25 61.675 61X00 572 2X52 m 3Ba4 -34 - - SOS Sov 11855 +025 11330 11330 10 13 Dec 1023 +1 _ . 1 3381 Oct 62J50 +0X25 52X00 62X25 88 2X51 Total <7X16155X70 Total 457 ajsn TOtil 2X70116493 Total 8,110 TLZR ■ PLATINUM NYMEX (50 Tray tsj SAray eaj ■ WHEAT CBT ^.DOObu min; centaAOb bustasQ ■ COCOA CSCE (10 tomes; SAnnnas) ■ LIVE HOGS CME (40000810: cantsObs) Are 4139 -24 415X 412X 1545 16378 *pr 4139 -35 4160 4125 358 2X«3 JH 4138 -23 4105 4165 3 1563 Oet 414J --Z1 417X 417X 2 016 Jam 415-7 -2.1 _ _ 1 5 Toad • 1X09 2150S ■ PALLADIUM NYMEX (100 Trey OZ; Wray aj Dae 13«X5 -065 135X0 13360 316 2815 Her 134X5 -0X5 13550 13450 55S 3X61 Jm 135X5 — - 67 193 Tabd 872 6X82 ■ SLYER COMEX (5JU0 Troy au Cents/troy ozj Mm SI 54 -11X 51 SX S15X 8 Dm 5135 -120 929.0 5125 18X40 41533 Jan 517.1 -12X 531 X 521.0 1 . Her 323X -121 5385 530.0 6521 31X52 Hay 5272 -121 545X 525X 69 8X10 jra 5314 -121 642.0 CTII) S3 62E0 Tote 21586 103582 OK ■far On an 25 497 JO 457 JO mso 414m 424.00 +3 502.50 48825 +275 50G50 496X0 +1X5 450.50 457.00 +2.50 414X0 411X0 +1X0 415X0 413X0 +225 425X0 422X0 3X17 20273 6X75 50X15 427 4X01 1.187 19X78 64 3X27 74 1X3? TOM 12X48 99,163 ■ MAIZE C8T g.000 txj min; carts/sea bu&t ' Dae 32a 00 +2.75 SC&25 326X5 15X34 35.111 Hw 33425 +225 334X0 333X0 22,140250,188 Mm 334.75 +1.75 335X0 334X0 4105 48,433 JH 33025 +0.76 331X0 32BJ5 2X5S 55X30 Sep 283.75 - 29025 28375 BB1 10,173 DM 279X0 - 280X0 27875 1245 27.122 TMri 48,736485274 ■ BARLEY LCE (£ per tonne) ENERGY ■ CRUDE OIL NYMEX fttJQQ US gate. S/bwiwB Re* 118X0 _ 118X0 116X0 3 30 Jan 11305 -0-35 118X0 117X0 11 913 Mar 12025 •4L50 12025 120X0 19 759 Mm 122X0 _02S 12200 12150 30 237 Sap 1115D -a?5 111X0 111X0 - 8 Her 11300 - - - - 27 Tatra 81 W7 ■ SOYABEANS CBT ROUlMi at*. centtfiOB fiusftefl am Daft 17X6 -0X1 18X8 T773 -0.02 17X5 17X7 -OX3 17.70 17.43 -0X4 17X4 17X2 -0X4 17.40 Jon 1724 -0X4 17.34 TOW ■ CRUDE OtL IPE (S/bwmQ M Mm Low Vet tot 17X0 28XZ61087B6 17X9 11523 41,779 17.45 4X81 28X38 17X3 1.732 12X81 1722 32S 9X56 17.16 1,178 18,118 61X38326X71 Beit Day's Opren pita tings Htfh low Voi btf Jsa 16.79 +0X5 16X4 1673 7X67 78X47 Mi 16X5 +0X1 16X1 1653 2202 22X89 Hw 16X8 +0X2 16.43 16X4 SI 8 15X84 Apr 1625 +0X4 1628 1625 280 7X87 Hay 1614 +OX4 2 2X06 Jon 16X5 +0X4 - - - 8282 TeM 10X84 143,131 ■ HEATMQ Oft. HTMEX (42X00 US jfc; cflB gate) ■ LME AM OfficM en rata: 1X645 Ug doing OS rata 15685 Spot 155S2 3 etfs 155G6 6 mtK 1X530 8 m»K 15500 ■ HIGH GRADE COPPB1 (COMEX) Sett DaT* Open prta ifaSP Hob Law 1M fat Now 13840 -0X0 13BX0 138X0 215 880 Doe 13145 -0X0 133X0 130X0 5X78 18520 Jaa 128X0 +0X5 120.70 128.75 233 1,462 fob 126X0 +0X5 127.70 126X0 100 818 Iter 124X0 -Ol30 125X5 124X0 2X25 11.784 /for 12355 -0X0 TOO 303 Total 8XB6 39545 PRECIOUS METALS ■ LONDON BULLION MARKET (Prices suppled by N M FtcdhscMd) E equhr SFfe equhr ^ GoidtTVoy az) S price Ctose 383X048680 Opening 383X0-383.70 Morning fix 38350 245X85 436231 Afternoon fix 38345 245487 437XB3 Day's Hgh 383X5-38385 Day's Low 38320-38350 Previous ciosa 384X0-385.10 Loco Ldn Maon GoM Lsodtog Rates (Vs USSJ 1 month — 2X0 6 months - 2XS ...2XO 12 months 3.13 Sait Dart Opan prta change M* law Vd H Ok 5254 +026 52.70 51.75 14,738 26473 Jan ■pp> +0.16 5275 51X5 11JQB 46288 Fab 52.12 +0.17 S23S 51X0 3740 25X32 tar 50.72 +0.17 50X0 90X0 1294 10X45 for 48X7 +0.17 48X0 48.70 298 4X55 mm 47.72 +0.17 — _ 310 4243 Tote 33JEB14628B ■ GAS Ott. K. (Stand Sett o»rt Opm prim dwnge MS* Low Vd fat Dm 15750 +025 156X0 157X0 4466 23X35 Jan 157.25 +050 158X0 15625 2X63 24.708 fob 156X0 +050 15625 155.00 674 7207 Bar 154.00 +025 15425 153.75 06 5X09 for 1S225 +050 152X0 152X0 25 1XS7 tav 15075 +050 - 14050 - 1,185 Total 0X40 74X61 ■ NATURAL GAS WMBC (10X00 imBle; SfomBbU Salt Day** Opan prim cfearega tab Low W fat Jaa £113 +0.055 2.135 2X66 19X11 41289 fob 1X54 +0.031 1X80 1X31 3X05 10765 far 1X24 40X18 1X34 1X10 2X94 13X00 for 1J14 +0008 ITS 1710 1,184 9.771 Hay 1J18 +0X00 1722 1715 552 7X83 Jfea 1.724 +0X06 1730 1.720 396 5X86 Jm 679X0 -3X 68S.75 E7BX0 18294 80X44 Mm 687.7S -a 6S375 886X0 4,415 42X82 ■ey 002X0 -2.76 607X0 091X0 1216 13252 Jut 69425 -225 690X0 1X19 18,769 fen 086X0 -425 694.75 680X0 116 1272 Sep 678X0 -123 675X0 675X0 32 1,474 Taira 23,116172277 ■ SOYABEAN OB. CBT (QOXOObs: centsrib) Dm 25X2 -022 25X0 3/B72 17X20 Jet 25.18 -925 25.45 25.17 3796 31.718 Mm 25X1 -924 25.75 25X0 1X54 19424 Mm 25X1 -923 26X5 75 Ml 672 8,320 M 25.06 -922 25X7 771 8X03 fog 26X6 -92 2633 26X6 106 1X79 Tatra 11X23 90X66 ■ SOYABEAN MEAL CBT (100 tons; SAari) Dee TRAD -94 2107 7m n 6751 23X79 Jm 211 .D -93 212.4 21 ox 4777 39X10 Mar 2124 - 214X 2>24 3465 28X70 Mm 2130 +92 2MX 213X 1X33 8X58 jra 21 3X -91 214X 213.0 £08 9X96 foil 211X -95 2T1X 211X 48 1X85 Tate 17X42103X04 ■ POTATOES LCE R/tomej Mm 270.0 _ _ _ _ _ for 252X +20 253.0 247X 53 1,142 May 285.0 - - - - 6 jn 325.0 - - - - - Tata! 53 1,150 ■ FREfGHT (BIFFEX) LCE (SlQflndex pobri) Noe 1603 -22 _ _ 629 OK 1576 -4 1585 1580 11 221 Jan 1519 +1 1515 1510 15 1,172 for 1505 +2 1500 1500 10 1230 jra 1335 -3 1340 13j5 77 488 Oct 1470 +15 - - - 84 Total Cbm Pro* 122 3X34 BH 1707 1728 Dee 1352 +1 1358 1345 142 1.795 tar 1373 +14 1380 1354 6.188 41X70 tar 1362 +14 1305 1373 444 10X15 jra 1411 +14 1410 1365 389 3X45 Sep 1434 +14 1421 1418 110 9X22 Bee 14S9 _ - - 5 7,125 Total 9564 70202 ■ COCOA 0CCQ) (SDfTaAonrw) tar 21 Mas 1 Firet flay Da8y — 973.65 ■ COFFEE LCE (S/tonne) tar 9413 -43 2529 2455 143 834 Joe 2190 +19 2190 2162 1211 14X67 tar 2054 +1B 2058 2025 1.158 B.711 Mm 1976 +28 1970 1D45 420 4X13 jra 1017 +31 1908 1885 293 1X48 Step 1073 +25 1873 1850 54 408 Total 3278 30224 ■ COM -LX *c* CSCE (37,50aba: cants/fes) Dae 114.15 -2X5 115X0 111.75 059 2XM tar 111X5 -2X0 113.70 10925 5,102 15,416 Mm 10945 -3X5 111.80 106XD 556 2X82 jra 10925 -2X5 110X0 108X0 103 777 am 107X0 -2.75 109.75 107.00 31 343 Dae 108X0 - 109.75 10950 101 275 Ok 44X50 +0X25 44675 44X25 1538 7,483 Pek 47250 +0215 47400 46X75 1.122 11242 Apr 47525 -0X35 47.850 47.450 395 5X18 its hi ay s +0200 S3 S S4T 271 4,121 •U 53.025 +0525 53100 52.775 88 2X01 Aug 52.150 +0.475 52.150 52X00 30 1.188 Total 34M 32217 ■ PORK BELLIES CMEWQXDOta: centaflbe) Fob 54.125 +Q40O 54X00 53X00 2X10 5X17 Mr 34X00 +0275 54X50 53.150 102 044 Mar 55.400 +4L2D0 55.800 54X00 50 400 jra 59925 +0.175 59950 55X00 31 456 A«a Total 54X50 -0X75 54X00 53X00 33 2200 168 7,183 LONDON TRADED OPTIONS Striko priori 9 tamo — CaOa — — - Pub — ■ ALUMMHJM TOW ■ coffee (ICO) jus certa/pound) Pita Comp. ObtiTy IS flay 6X« 21X60 Pre*. flay 111 79 119X1 ■ No7 PREMBJM RAW SUGAR LCE (centa/lB) Jm 1325 - Mar 1090 - - - - ■ay 10X7 +006 - Jri 10X7 - Total ■ WHITE SUGAR LCE (S/torew) Oct Dec 3S4X +22 355.0 3535 3445 +22 345.0 342X w» wen tru 305X +32 3082 3035 2973- +3X 2884 296X 29BX +3X 2974 2330 32S 14X25 72 5X83 109 3663 99 2X97 52 1539 19 279 TMal 681 28X71 ■ SUGAR nr CSCE (lliOaOtas certs/tos) (90.794) LME Dec Feb Dec Feb 1600 __ 88 126 . 18 1700 ... - 12 62 25 50 1800 - 2d 112 111 ■ COPPER (Gnxte A) LME Dec Ffe Dec Feb 2800 110 77 5 107 2900 .. — . 39 42 34 171 3000 7 - 103 - ■ COFFEE LCE Jan Mar Jen Mar 1900 - 294 225 4 71 1050 248 195 e 91 2000 204 167 14 113 ■ COCOA LCE Mar May Mar May 876 90 113 11 15 000 71 95 17 22 025 ._ 55 78 26 30 ■ BRENT CRUDE IPE Jan Deb Jan Feb 1650 43 44 IS 42 1700 - 17 25 38 73 1750 _ - - 77 113 LONDON SPOT MARKETS ■ CRUDE OB. FOB (par borreWJwi) -Mr FUTURES DATA At futures data supptad by CMS. mm ■ UNLEADED GASOLINE WYMEX (42X00 US gete^otBgafcJ 93107141577 2 monlfcs 3 months -an SKvrer R* p/troy or. US CS equ hf. DK Spot 334.70 523X0 Jaa 3 months 3MB5 529X0 'fob- 8 months 343X0 535X0 ' ' tar 1 yresr 352X5 546.55 for Gold Calm S price E equto. tap Krugerrand 385-386 246-247 TOM Maple Leaf 394X0-396X0 New Sovereign 00-92 57-59 Salt Daft food pita drangt Hfak Lew W fed 54.12 +1X0 5425 52X5 11,722 15X42 52X4 +0.45 5240 . 51.40 7X88 20X54 81X2 +0X2 52.15 5140 4X67 12XQ 51 JO +0.13 51X5 51X0 1271 5427 54.15 +0.18 54X0 5425 153 4X78 54.10 +0.18 5445 5420 1X64 8,176 25X61 88486 Wool Prices aaaad at aucHons In Austmla, South Africa & New Zealand. Tradure were suprtad heamer when prices of BrttMl wool in Bradford were ralaUvoly steady to firmer dssp Hm fimHed hope of better bualnaos before dafatma a . Retail tmda In the U.K, Europe S elaewtwre Is not good. Retaieire wfih stock and margins under pressure are dtafaKSned to buy mere then they feel essenti al Currency had mixad eflects during the week, but in staring terms show Btte chape mere!. The Eastern market Indicator feiAus&ale closed at 811 ctsf kg. ocmpwed with 626 last week. tar iaxB +0X7 1096 1075 8X51 70529 tay 10.87 +009 10.76 1057 2X45 21501 Jtd 1022 +0X5 10.30 1016 1415 14X65 Dd 1012 +0X7 1020 1005 1469 10764 St 10X2 +0X7 10X8 9X5 60S 9X95 ta* nn> - 0X6 086 25 1,173 Tatra 13X13143X85 ■ COTTON NYCE (SOXOOtos; cente/lbs) Dec 8984 +041 67X0 86X5 4X27 4.701 tar 80X8 +058 87X0 8010 8X55 23584 Hay 66X0 +0X6 87X0 86X0 1X53 0697 Jd 8943 +053 8060 85X0 489 6X41 Id 8030 +010 3040 80.10 65 1,464 Dec 77.40 - 7750 77.15 155 7504 Tatra 16X44 53,791 ■ ORANGE JUICE NYCE <15X00foe: cente/tos) Jm 123X5 -030 124X0 123X0 561 10043 Bw 12970 -045 126X0 12025 370 5X20 ta* 129. DO -040 129X0 12070 166 1577 jra 131.10 -050 - - 706 Sep 133X0 -070 - - - 678 ■a* 132.45 -0X0 - - 100 214 irara 1X52 27.112 US MARKETS COMEX. nymex. NYCE and CSCE are doaed. Open Interest and Voiiane data for CBT and CME are one day to anew a. INDICES ■ REUTERS {Base: 18/8731=1069 Nov 24 Nov 23 month ego year ago 2175J 21764 21D2.B 2142X N CR8 Futures (Base: 1967^100) Nov 22 Nov 21 month ago yaw ago 241.54 241X4 ■ osg Spot (Bat. 197Q=10q Nov 22 Nov 21 month ago year ago 18840 187X8 1BOS5 177X5 Dribs! S15.59-fl-69w +0.150 Brent Blend (dated) ST 085-6X9 +0X08 Brent Blend (Jan) $1078-080 +0.045 W.TJ. (1pm es) ST0O5-&O6W ■ Ott. PRODUCTS NINE prompt cWvary CtF (tome) Premium GesoOne $186-187 Gas CH $161-162 Heavy Fuel 08 388-69 +1 Naphtha Si 50-151 Jet fuel $180-182 Cfesel $165-186 +2 Petroleum Ape. lei lenten (D17T) 359 8792 ■ OTHER Odd (per troy dz>* $383X0 +1X5 sower (per trey oz)* 5245c +1X Hatinum (per troy az.) $412.90 +0X0 PaflodkiTO (per trey oz.) $133.15 +0.15 Copper 125.0c Lead (US prod.) 41.75c Tin (Kuala Lumpu) 1 5.96m -009 Tin (New York) 3045c Cattle (Hva weighty 127.1 7p +0X7* Sheep (he weight)!* 112JMp +3X6* Pigs (he weight ff 104.48p +1X0* Lon. day auger (raw) S303X0 Lon. day sugar (wto) $394X0 +1X0 Barley (Eng. feed ) £1235 -OX Maize (US No3 Yellow) E1055W - Wheat (US Dark North) Unq Rubber (Deq)fo 112.76P +1X0 Rubber (Jan)V 112.75P +1X0 Rubber (KLRSSNol) 427Xm ♦to Coconut Ofl (Phfl)§ *7475y -2X Palm CM (Maiay.)§ S595Xy -25 Copra (Ptifl§ amoy -120 Soyabeans (US) 196. Ou +20 Cotton Outkx*'A' Index 89.00C Wooltops (64s Super) 444p ■8 £ par tom# untan nOnnoa* ntwt p psncWkg. c cornu*, r nhgipuhg. m MiSnuMsi ewarig. < One. u nemUolV w Jsa y NoWDec. x OcUDbc London PhyakaL I OF Mv- dam. f Brikm maduv ofexm. 4 Shngp pj« walgM prlcw}. - Change an owk t Pries* are lor previous day. US INTEREST RATES ■ LONG GK.T FUTURES OPTIONS (UFFE3 ES0X00 64ttw of 10056 Latest Bntataoita- Fadhnls . founds « Harenta- M ThowosHi-. 7>a it™ owdlL. 6>s Shnona ■ Owrev — Ihnuy BHs and Bond Ytekte 318 Tvnyear. 5X7 Itreejeir- 550 RMjear- 550 lifoew 5+4 30-yoor 350 558 370 392 628 Stoto Price Jen Feb CALLS - Mar Jun Jen Feb PUTS Mar Jm 108 1-24 1-54 2-07 2-18 0-40 1-06 1-23 2-06 109 0-53 1-19 1-36 1-52 1-05 1-35 1-62 2-40 110 0-28 0-57 1-09 1-27 1-44 2-09 2-25 3-15 ■ BOND FUTURES AND OPTIONS France ■ NOTIONAL FRBICH BOND RTTURES (MA7IF) FFrSOOXOO EsL vol tool Cm 2248 Pta 3383 Pravkaa ds/S open WL Ctta 14061 Puss 12985 Ecu ■ ECU BOND FUTURES (MAUF) ECU1IM.OOO Open Sett price Change tfigh Low EsL voL Open Int Open Sett pries Change High Low EM. voL □pen hit Dec 11942 119X6 +0X6 11088 11040 89X45 108X50 Dec 89X6 9032 +0X0 90.46 68X6 4.728 9X57 Mar 118X6 11068 +024 11076 1 1054 3X68 15X15 Jun 17078 11090 +OXS 11090 11075 202 0254 IIS ■ US TREASURY BOND FUTURES (CBT) SKXL000 32nds of 10096 Opan Settprloe Change High Low Bt voL Open W. Dec 117-19 117-28 +0-15 117-30 117-17 17SX2B 294,167 Mar 117-11 117-19 +0-15 117-20 117-08 14,784 124X68 JLfi 118-28 117-03 +0-15 117-04 118-25 277 13445 Japan ■ NOTIONAL LONG 1BW JAPANESE GOVT. BOND FUTURES (UFFE) YIDOm IDOhs of 1009*. Open H. 0 0 Open Ctose Change High Low EsL vd Dec 123X5 - - 123.19 123X2 748 Mar 121.65 - - 121X3 121.64 3358 ■ UFFE hems reo batted on APT. At Open Interest flgs. ore ter prev tore day. FT-ACTU ARIES FIXED INTEREST INDICES ■ LONG TERM FREWM BONO OPTIONS (MAUF) Strflca Price IIS 117 IIS 119 120 PUTS Frf NM 24 Day's chang e M Thu Nov 23 Ac Quad xS ad yMd Frl Nov 24 Bay's Change M Thu Nov 23 Accreed irnorest xd ad yield Jun Dec Jin Dec 3X3 - 2X3 - - 0.01 1.80 1X2 - 0X2 0X9 1X9 - 0.10 0.15 0.68 - 0X2 EsL VOL told, Cats laxee Pure M,112 . Previous day's open tot, fteik T74XB7 Mb B01X84 042 0X7 OX7 144 Up to 5 yearn (22} 5-15 yoara (211 Over 15 ywcrtpl toedeemableo (6} At stocks (59) 122X8 148X8 166l11 189X7 143X0 40.17 4030 40X0 +0X6 4028 122.77 147X3 185X1 18350 143X2 2.17 1X1 225 1X7 1X0 9.72 11.73 12.13 1347 11.18 6 Up to 5 years (1) 7 Over 5 years (11) 8 Ml stocks (12) 194X2 18849 18849 40.09 40X7 4026 10444 187X8 187X0 075 125 1X4 8X7 445 4.54 Oermany ■ NOTIONAL GERMAN BUND FUTURES (UFFE)* DM2SOOOO IQOtfta 0< 10056 Yields NOV 24 Nov 23 Low ooupon yteid — Yr ago High Low No* 24 Mi Nov 23 Ktonax Yr ago rprayjrad- Low Nov 24 Nov 23 High cou Vi ago ngn LOW 7.11 7.15 8X5 075 (7 r i) 7.11 (24/11) 7.11 7.16 8-41 078 (7/3) 7.11 (24/11) 7.19 7X3 8.55 094 (26/1) 7.19 (24/11) 15 yrs 7.77 7X0 035 8X8 W ) 7.77 (6®) 7X1 7X4 046 080 (7/3) 7.77 (645) 7X9 7.92 8.70 9X3 |7/3) 7.89 (24/11) 20 ym fered-t Indujc-lnlcud 7X3 7X4 7X5 7X8 8X3 8X2 (7/! 042 8X6(24/ - InBadon rats 594 i 7.78 (EJB9 1} 7X4 P/B) 7X8 7X9 046 8.B0 (7/3) Inffetfton rate 10M » 7.79 (6/E) 7X2 7X4 063 8X5 (7/3) 7X0 0.78 (14/9) CM Open Sett price Chengs High Lew EsL vd Open fed. Dec 97X3 +017 98X9 97X1 83164 161468 Mar 97X4 97X3 +0.18 97X0 97X4 15643 49331 ■ BUND FUTURES OPTIONS (UFFE) DM250.000 points of 100% Up to 5 yre 2.7S 2X1 3X2 4.17 (1Q71) 2.71 (13« 1.B1 1X1 261 2X6 (10/1) over S yw 3X4 3X5 3X3 3X5(0/3) 3X1 (25/5) 3X4 3X5 3X4 3.77 (8/3) 3X0 (14/9) Average aoaa redemption yields are shown above. Coupon Bands: Lost: 0%-73»%; Medksrr 8%-l0^t%; High: 11% and over, t Plat yield, yld Year to dote. Base values: UK Gits taficas 31/12/75 o 100X0 and Max-Unfed 30/4/82 = 100X0. ' 1995 highs and Iowa. FT FDCED INTEREST INDICES Nov 24 Nov 23 'Nov 22 Nov 21 Nov 20 Yr ago Hfrf LOW GILT EDGED ACTIVITY INDICES Nov 23 Nov 22 Nov 21 Nov 20 Nov 17 Strike CALLS - PUTS Price Jan Feb Mv Jun Jan Feb Mv JUi '9700 0.72 ' 1X1 1X2 1X1 OX9 0X8 0.79 148 0750 043 0.73 0.95 1X0 0X0 0X0 1.02 1.78 0800 023 051 0.71 0X9 0X0 1X8 1.28 2X6 EsL VOL towL Cote 24193 Puts 138401 Prcnfeua Oafa opan mu Cste 113207 Puw B3SC Italy ■ NOTIONAL ITALIAN GOVT. BOND (BTP) FUTURES (UTE)* Lire 200m lOOfts af 100% Opan Ss» price Change HSgh Lew ESL val Open Int, Dec 103X4 103.84 +0.14 104X5 103.72 20329 38730 Mar 103X0 10347 40.14 103.66 10X40 1398 5108 ■ ITALIAN GOVT, BOND (BTP) FUTURES OPTIONS ftJFEQ Ura200m IQOtta cA 100% Strife - - CALLS — PUTS Pnc* 10300 1B3SD 10400 Govt. Saco. (UK) 95.14 95X1 94.73 94.73 94X8 92X9 95X1 9022 G» Edged bargains 88X 83.9 SIX 88X 98X Rood fatenret 113X0 113X8 113X3 113X1 113X8 10080 114X6 10077 5-day average SIX 96X B9X 96X 83.6 * for 1SB5. Govarrenant Seostas Noli since comptedon: 12740 B/V35J, tow 40.18 pn/75). Ftesd tete re st Ngh since ccnWM to rc 133X7 (21/1/94) , tow 9LS3 (3/1/73) . Boms 100: Qovommnt 6ecuvtea isnor 2B and Fared arena 1328. SE oeMy Mire retaresd 1974. UK GILTS PRICES tab lOfee 1997- btiil foe 1997. Ntpciese. Mar Jun Mar Jloi 2.12 2.67 1.6S 2.70 1X6 043 1X9 2X6 1X3 2X1 2.16 3X4 CalB 3917 fow 3382. Premw dart epee 0&. Cate 10268 taaaQGS Trees Ttipcigg^ — iw e\pc lees-sett .. TrereftPapeWB; Etalfoe 19S8 Ttoi VOC 19998 Trees Ffo Rate ieee Enautspcisn Trim lOispC 1080 Dm foe 10908 CtnenriBi1Mipc1999_ 9X1 Obm 9pc 20008- Daw IfoeRMO^. Tfoc 10BS-1 tat fed WmE + or- Mfe 1065 6JB 1ft14k -ft 14X6 633 HBU -«a 12X4 629 1034 -A 6X6 623 ItCPj 1231 621 107® +A 1001 091 104% 6X3 633 101A *A 629 103% 1X03 6X5 11U -ft 9.17 651 106U *A 7.15 657 10 m *& S74 672 100$ *4 1267 671 122% 1053 675 114 +** 0S3 676 107% +ft - -woftra 1057 654 1150 + 1 * 9M EJ6 1114 +■4 017 668 974 +A 021 625 1114 +4 036 099 1D7fi 1057 706 123 1201 «BB 11«fl rft 1905 .. HUi Lew _ Yield-. _1B95_ W fod Pries E , w- Hub law -Yield-. - 180 S — ft) QMceg +er- fip law ion 100*1 ion* ioiA Koa 117A 107A 101 >9 100>* IW. 1HA 971 123& 1171. Time 12>ipe 2003-6 «"A Ttaeflla*200S8 JSi 7tae2D0B8 1^1 apc2DtB-att Spain ■ NOTIONAL SMUOSH BOND FUTURES (MEFF) ■uisa 1 104J, Treat 11 line 2003-7 — 97*1 Tress S^pc 20074*. tShsa 2004-8- ™ Trees foe 2006 8- M 1 ™“^ cao9 9411 ,!?? ItewlWtereTIrere Tree* 6 U4ee 2010 JP? Con foe li> 7011 8 Trass 8pc 201 Kft MW TMs5>aK 2000-128- 117 Tress Bpc 20138 "♦A 7\w an 2-158 Bpcans Tress SToc 20178. Esdilfoc 2trlS-T7„ 8X1 758 773 742 856 8X3 748 129A 753 106,'^ 744 00 d 7.71 100A 747 102X 754 123? 7.73 lBSi 750 1355 7J8 may /js ioia *A 12W. +A ltW. +& 09 +£, 1004 +X 10213 +4 17313 +4 10SJJ +A 13® +4 HO* *& 7X6 7.B4 flew +^» MB 615 7X4 110B mft &I3 7X4 710U tiih 653 7X3 80ft -ft to\ 7X7 7X3 1014S +J+ 115ft, 7X5 7X4 SMi -* m 7X5 7x0101 He) +* 1020 601 7XS 1064 +A UtM 063 7201394«1 4ft 139U 1I9B 97*s 9*H 021. B3\ nai 97U 126* 101% H 7»A lOtB 102 * 72 1( 93JJ sm 9% 1000 i»A JeeW (8751 Siewtt— xssa 2hecm (7ia 2‘aKH3 paa _ :D0-_ 2>29C11 (7441 2%j>ci3 ma 2lzflc'1B. --«1.G) 2%pe-» 183.01 Pljoe-Wt* 107 J) Slwte'SOS — (135.1) - 2X3 141 270 288 138 106 !« 3.10 345 319 347 326 340 329 350 3X4 352 141,5 139 357 345 340 144 357 144 357 US II IB in* 141 J % iss Si?. Prospective red redempdan rate on profnoao bdUon of m 10% end (2) BN. (b) Figures In parenthexa show RPI bw tor hdwdng (ie 6 manrite prior ns tasue) end have been i •_ roOect rebosmg of BH ta 100 hi Fnhnswy 1907. Ocnvwakar factor 3X45 RPI far Mwch 1995: 1475 and for ftwitre iggj. 148X. Other Fixed Interest Note — YMd 1BDS M fod Pria£+nr- Hkti Dec M«r UK Opan Sen price Change High Low EsL woL Open ML 91X7 92.17 +048 92.19 91X2 4&X32 37X89 91.75 91.93 +048 82.12 91.72 1.871 4X92 ■ NOnONAL UK GUT SUTURES XJFFg E5QX0D 32ntfa of 100% Open Sett price Cheng# Wflh Low Est vol Open taL Dee 109-09 109-11 +0X7 109- IB 108-30 42543 100018 Mw 108-24 108-24 +0-07 10024 108-12 SIX 11220 OmahtmSOK ■ Tap/ stuck, tt Tfa+trea to 7.69 7jB104ftm +ft 052 7 .17 112ft ♦ft 7X7 7X2 +ft 067 7X7 44* 7.7S 7X4103ftd ♦ft 872 748 114*4 ♦ft 073 731 118* ♦ft 4 XT 031 Blft -ft 045 7X1 1T2A ♦ft 7.15 7JK 94ttd +ft 047 7X7 11X•- Ala;n Jirppo. p.'im* tv: rioter S Jacques Chirac and Alain Juppe will have to pull together if France’s unpopular programme of reforms is to succeed, says David Buchan The politics of public protest E very time the French- off pensioners and the unemployed threshold, or of the 2.4m poorer question of treason. When in Italy decrees, planned for approvalby tflkA to the streets In are to have their health insurance unemployed who draw small sums the three unions negotiate pension parliament by next spring, largely large numbers, as they contributions sharply Increased to of dole money. But the damage had reform with a centre-right govern- for reasons of speed. . did yesterday and will about half the rate paid by active by then been done. ment, no one dares say this is For Mr Juppe lacks not only pop- do again next week to wage-earners. Larger companies. Overall, 64 per cent c£ the French abnormal.” ulanty but time. The next paruar E very time the French take to the streets In large numbers, as they did yesterday and will do again next week to protest against the government’s for-reaching welfare reforms, the question arises: can any French government succeed in imposing an austerity p mgrammp without wide- spread disruption? Discontent with the conservative government of Mr Alain Jupp£, prime mfnistw since May, been building for «nm» tims li«tt month saw a minor riot in Bordeaux, where Mr Jnpp$ is also may ex, by shopkeepers complaining about the level of state pension contributions. At universities, students have started sit-ins and protests at the lack of teachers. And yesterday almost the entire 180,000 workforce of the SNCF rail system stopped work in protest at planned cuts and productivity measures. This, togetho’ with an air traffic controllers’ stoppage, meant that yesterday’s public-sector strike bit deeply. It was in protest ate plan to gytpnH the length of civil-servant pension contributions from 37% years to the 40-year period , now required of the private sector. Fiance yesterday was therefore vir- tually without trains, planes, mafi delivery, national newspapers . or functioning schools. • “ 1 Yet Mr Juppt thought he had judged the reforms he ann ounced 10 days ago to pull the country’s social security system out of chronic defi- cit just about right So did most commentators, and so too did the more independent-minded of his political opponents. But as well as tha unpopular pen- sion changes, the welfare reforms are hard for many people to swal- low. Taxpayers are to pay a new levy to repay past social-security debt Families are to have their gen- nous state allowances for children counted as taxable income. Better- off pensioners and the unemp loyed are to -have their health incnranra contributions sharply increased to about half the rate paid by active wage-earners. Larger companies, doctors and pharmaceutical compa- nies will -be required to make spe- cial contributions. But as La Tribune, a business daily, put it this week in a meta- phor of failed cuisine' that all French understand: “The mayon- naise is not taking”. There is still not the slightest sign of Mr Jupp6 backing down, or of Mr Jacques Chirac, the president withdrawing his support for a~ welfare, reform package he personally helped to craft. But in announcing his reforms, Mr Jupp& .did say that he had to convince France of their worth, and warned that “if 2m peo- ple were to tefrp to the streets, then my government would not survive”. Some trade unionists are taking his words as a challenge. In doing so. they could endanger not only the survival erf the Juppe govern- ment but also the chances of France meeting the Maastricht trea- ty's fiscal targets in 1997 in thna to qualify for European monetary union two years late:. Part of Mr Juppe’s problem is that too much of the pain was perceived to be loaded on to the poor. By the timp we went 1 on television -last Sun- - day he •had' realised this. He* stressed that no thing far ther would be asked of the 5m households and 6m pensioners below the income teT threshold, or of the 2.4m poorer unemployed who draw small sums of dole money. Bat the damag e had by then been done. Overall, 64 per cent c£ the French believe his packag e to be “unfair”, according to a poll by the CSA insti- tute on Thursday. Although the opposition from aoma trade lmirms has been fierce, one of the few pieces of good news for Mr Jupp6 is that the m o ve m ent- - is not united in its approach to the welfare reforms. Force Ouvri&re, nna large union fadaratfnn, is pre- dictably furious about the reforms, which t h roe t on its vested interest in running the health insurance sys- tem in conjunction with the employers. S o keen is FO to make its anger known that it has called a separate general strike next Tuesday. But Mrs Nicole Notat. the sec- retary-general of the CFDT union federation, has publicly welcomed the chang es in the hpflith insurance system. This earned her boos and jeers from some of her tnpmhnrs at a m ee tin g an Wednesday. Mrs Notat, who has been trying to steer her federation towards a more moderate line, complained that many trade unionists were showing - a kneejerk reaction.- She says: “When in-Germany the central DGB ■ federation negotiates with a conser- . vative government an the future of the health sy stem , no one raises the Social security deficit, . ’ question of treason. When in Italy tiie three nrdnns negotiate pension reform with a centre-right govern- ment, no one dares say this is abnormal.” . Also under fire Mr Claude Evin, a Socialist former health minister, who was quick to praise Mr Juppe. However, he was brought to heel by Mr Lionel Jospin, the party leader. The Socialists have now produced an - reaction which broadly condemns the Juppe reforms for mwnhwHnp injustices in tiie fund- ing of French welfare, although it also appears to endorse the notion n f lrin gw- paneiftn contributions. The welfare issue is causing the left wing of tiie Socialist party to re-think its earlier welcome for Maastricht Mr Juhen Dray, a left- wing Socialist MP, told the National . Assembly last week: “If- the fight against t hARA claimpfl de fla te gteiQS from the Maastricht convergence criteria, if tiie French health system is to be henceforth under the pur- view of Mr Theo Waigel [the Ger- man finance minister], then 1 say that tomorrow or the day after tomorrow our citizens will rightly say they have bad pyinn gh of this European construction.” If the welfare debate is being farced back on to traditional left- right lines, the Jupp§ gnrn mmflnt, controlling.. 80: per -cent of the National Assembly,. has more. than enough troops to carry- the social security changes. But Mr Jnppfrhas chosen to do it mainly by a safes of Health insurance 27JB ^ ^ ■ Wi • -3&4 1 • .- -123 ‘ FamBy allowances ' +10.7*" . 104 \ ' -/ I : ’ - 4JB - t!' ..v «-• KSib Source prime fflMttWs office • t 9B3 sunSbscn tam*y aflewra. heftier Bgtirttun deft* decrees, planned for approval by parliament by next spring, largely for reasons of speed. For Mr Jupp6 lacks not only pop- ularity but time. The next parlia- mentary elections must be held by at March 1998, giving him only about 18 months to force through some heavily contested reforms; after that he must move his government into electoral mode if the opposition Socialists are not to recoup their massive losses in 1993. Nor can he easily duck some of the ancillary issues. Restructuring at SNCF, the railway operator, is desperately needed to stem its annual FFrl2bn deficit. The plan to remove the civil-servant status of. France T£l£cora*s recalcitrant work: force must go through before the January 1998 start of European lib- eralisation. Mr Chirac is supporting Mr JuppA but (moating on a quite dif- ferent timetable He still has more than six years in the Elysee, and wants to spend time in policy areas that fell more directly into his presi- dential domain, such as defence. Big budget savings are possible: France's defence spending is still a mere 4 per cent below its cold war peak. A defence review is under- way, and sometime next year Mr Chirac will make known its result The leisurely pace of this review is. however, denying Mr Juppe a margin of manoeuvre he urgently needs. Reducing France’s public def- # icits, which Mr Chirac has said is his highest priority, requires action on all fronts - the welfare system, the'budget, even subsidies to SNCF. C hange can be carried out in the face of the country’s innate conser- vatism, of the desire of many French to see others foot the neces- sary bill, and of angry opposition from unions with a vested interest in the status quo. But if ever there was a time for France's president and prime minister to pull together to achieve this, it is now. Resta serve nasty f- A pi i'* 1 ‘ 4 * • : end U!‘ ? - iiiiin:*-" ■ 'll':" ' ' l.- i:. • • •LETTERS TO THE EDITOR- Number One Southwark Bridge, London SE1 9HL We are keen to encourage letters from readers around die world. Letters may be faxed to +44 Tft>+B73 5938 (please set fox to 'fine'). e.mail: ietter&£ditor@ft.com Translation may be available 'for letters written in the mate international languages. Short route to spirituality From Hr Alistair Budd. Sir. I note that God in All Worlds. An Anthology of Contemporary Spiritual Writing . reviewed in your November IS, T9 edition (Books: "The many manifestations of the divine"}, runs to an impressive 877 pages. However, the search for spirituality might be satisfied more readily (and more substantially) by a study of the Gospels which, in some edition of the Ring James version of the Bible, comprise just 170 pages. Alistair Bndd. 20 roe da Nord, CH-1180 Rolie, Switzerland New Canada referendum ruled out until 1998 From Mr Richard Guay. Sir, In your article “Bouchard to take over as Quebec PM”, (November 22) which dealt with Mr Lucien Bouchard's decision to become prime minister of Quebec, it was stated that any further referendum on the independence of Quebec “would not be before April 1997”. This is incorrect. In answer to a specific question on the subject, Mr Bouchard stated that the provision in the Quebec referendum act that forbids a second referendum on the same subject during the life of a given legislature would not be amended. Thus, any future referendum cm the sovereignty of Quebec could not be held before a general election. This election would normally take place in 1998 or 1999. It is important that April 1997 be dispelled as the date when a new referendum might be held in Quebec. Mr Bouchard has stated that, until the next election, the energies of his government will be devoted to “the restructuring of public finance”. Richard Guay, agent general, Quebec Government Office. 59 Hall Mall, London SWlY 5JH, UK Evidence shows UK better off outside Emu From Mr Rodney Leach. Sir. It is sad that you give such prominence to the letter of Mr John Szemerey (November 22V who repeats every discredited canard about monetary union. If there was anything In the argument that the City of London must transact international business in its own currency in order to prosper, then the City would have declined when the sterling area collapsed. But in feet the opposite happened. The City’s share of foreign exchange and other international financial services grew immensely. As for the argument that external Investment in tiie UR would be reduced if Britain stays outside Emu. has Mr Szemerey not noticed that German industry is seeking low cost areas for its new investments and for the first time is exporting capital out of Germany? Or that investment into the UK has soared during a prolonged period of relatively weak currency? Again, the facts prove the opposite of his assertion. Independent observers, like the Bundesbank and the Fed, believe that cm balance the UK would be better off outside Emu. This is partly for the above reasons and partly because of the concept of the "optimal currency zone”. Countries which need an identical policy response to economic shocks can benefit from monetary union. But the UK will often need to respond differently from Germany, since its trading and investment patterns, financial structure, energy sources and pension systems (to name but four el emails) are so different, five times as much British trade is done in dollars as in the currencies of the Franc/Mark zone combined. It is therefore to the benefit of tiie UK and of Germany that the two countries should have separate currencies, to enable each to respond flexibly to economic ehang a. This is not a case of “keeping a few Eurosceptics happy”. It is a case of drawing logical conclusions from a large body of rigorous economic thinking of impeccable credentials, much of which emanates from the Bundesbank itself, an organisation which I imagine even Mr Szemerey would not wish to disparage. Rodney Leach, 3 Lombard Street, London EC3V 9AQ, UK Executives must act as directors From Mr John A Chudley. Sir. The first sentence of the Lex column piece on UK corporate governance (November 23) gives a cine to one of the principal problems of boardrooms. It is not the role of the non-executives that is in doubt but that of the executive directors. Executive directors must understand that the mim-ito they cross the threshold of the boardroom they cease to be executives, they become directors. They cease to be advocates, they become judges. AH directors have the same role and the same, collective, responsibility and the only difference between an executive, and a non-executive director Is the information base he brings to the boardroom. Thus the executive directors were just as guilty of dithering at Cable and Wireless (In fact, probably more so since they presumably were more aware of fhe situation). The feet that in their executive roles they were beholden to one or other of tiie waning parties does not relieve them from their obligation to the share- holders. The feet that a chief executive can make life unpleasant for an executive director who stands up to him is one more reason for directors to have a professional body to define standards and support those • who live up to them. 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X : V offshore I — — CENTRE j ——Postcode: J l FTI ^'- ■ Tho« * anb en»!« hM hem Manage iQ» l nrifawX7| , ZlZ * T» Oftfrm, Crane * <•«» c*. w - — —ioto (Channel fctowun** -a r-i., . o WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25/NOVEMBER 26 1995 COMMENT & ANALYSIS 11 Men in the News • Gerry Robinson and Sir Rocco Forte Carpenter’s son versus milk bar kid Raymond Snoddy and Scheherazade Daneshkhu examine the management style of the rivals T he protagonists in the dramatic corporate battle for the future of Forte, the hotels and catering group, could hardly be more dif- ferent in background, career, managerial approach and personality. On the one side is Gerry Robinson, the chief executive of Granada, who is about to become chairman of the television and leisure group. He is open, informal, not pompous and a man who laughs uproari- ously and indiscriminately at jokes that are good and bad - his own as well as everyone else's. "Gerry got more laughs at the analysts' meeting on Forte than all the other com- panies put together over the year," says one industry analyst, who nevertheless recognises the seriousness behind Robin- son’s smiles. On the other is Sir Rocco Forte, chair- man of Forte and the only son of Lord Forte, the founder of the catering and hotel empire. Reserved, proper, formal and courteous, he is not a wan to leave analysts in stitches. The two men have met competitively only once before - on the golf course with Sir Rocco’s brother-in-law Mishap! Afan- Buckley. The Forte brother-in-law came first. Sir Rocco second, and Gerry Robin- son a pom third. “If anyone thfoira my bid is hacpd on lasing at golf, rd have bid for half the country by now," says Robinson, the ninth of 10 children of an Irish carp**"*^ who moved from Donegal to En gland m search of work. Robinson, 48, was educated at Dtmfan- aghy school, a two-teacher school serving a 150-strong community on a haadbmd tu Donegal. Thinking he had a vocation for the priesthood, he moved on to St Mary's College. Castiehead, Lancashire, a Catho- lic seminary. Despite gaining eight O-levels and four A-levels - straight A grades - Robinson decided a gains t university. The decision was taken partly because of lack of money at home, but also because he feared uni- versity would be another Tnstitntinn like the seminary, and he had had ennn gh of that. 1 went along to the youth employment office and took the first job offered - a cost clerk at Lesney Products," says Rob- inson, adding that he lflfpH everything about the job, particularly the fact that the toy-making company employed 3,500 women. His experience at Lesney, where he qualified as an accountant through day release courses and correspondence learn- ing, has mar ked his manag ement style to this day. "You got straight to the heart of what the business was all about There was no layer upon layer of management I saw simplisticaUy what business was about," says Robinson. "I thought then business was about making a product that people wanted to buy at a price you could make money out of and my views haven't changed all that much smce,” he adds. He moved to Lex, the distribution com- pany - he says, because his Mini was clapped out, he bad no money and they were offering a company car. Tsit&r Robinson was brought in to clear up what be describes as "a total mess" in t he finance department of a subsidiary of Grand Metropolitan, following the take- over of another soft drinks company. “We took, a year and a hit to sort it out and I enjoyed the feet we did the whole turnround with exactly the same people." says Robinson. He clarified tasks, set pri- orities and created monitoring systems to ensure that the planned chang es were actually happening. His management style at Granada, where he is now responsible for 45,000 people, is much the same. He gets in between 9am and 10am. does not scurry about, and Ekes to bead for home around Fi 30pm to help put His second family - a daughter aged 4% and son 1% - to bed. The pattern was unchanged even on Thursday when Robinson launched the hostile bid for Forte and carried out the animal review of company performance with top management following the publi- cation of Granada’s annual results. He still left work at 550pm. returning to his large house with the Indoor swimming pool in Holland Park. He takas all his holidays and time off and gets back to his native Donegal, where he Has a cottage, half a dozen times a year. “If you taka a dozen decisions a year - and the derision to bid for Forte would certainly be one of those - that’s about it And probably six of those decisions are about nuking sure you have the right people," says Robinson. He manages through his divisional heads and never goes over their heads. But be also jumps heavily on anyone daring to write any “arse-covering memos". H owever, he is quick to act if a divisional head is not making the grade. - that person is replaced. Robinson believes it would “cowardly kindness" to do other- wise, ginfp the consequences might be to put other people’s jobs in jeopardy. He takes a similar approach when jobs have to be cut - as they usually do when Robinson and Charles Allen, his close associate and Granada’s chief executive designate, take over a company. Cutting unsnstainable jobs is “the kindest and most sympathetic route for the majority of employees". After the cuts come the possibility of growth and the creation of a larger number of permanent jobs. One of his first steps if the bid for Forte is successful will be to prune foe compa- ny's grey and black headquarters at High Holbora. Some 300 staff work there, com- pared with just 23 at Granada’s head office in Golden Square, in London's Soho. Robinson’s description of Forte’s head office as “bloated” draws indignation from Sir Rocco, who prints out that less than half the 300 staff are involved in corporate affairs, directing a company which employs 50.000 people. For Sir Rocco. that business has been his life. He even spent school holidays working in various of the company's busi- nesses. as a waiter at the Cafe Royal, on snack bar counters and at reception in various hotels. When he was bom in January 1945, his father owned five milk bars in London and had yet to build up bis hotel empire which began with foe acquisition of foe Waldorf hotel in London in 1958. Lard Forte always wanted his only son to fol- low him into foe family business. Sir Rocco went to school at Downside where he took 12 O-levels and 2 A-levels in Italian and French. He studied modem languages at Pembroke College. Oxford, where he gained a fourth, an honours degree which no longer exists. After qualifying as a chartered accoun- tant, he joined Forte and was appointed to foe board in 1973 as personnel director. He became chief executive in 1982. but had to wait a decade before bis father retired before also becoming chairman. “When his father was there, he con- trolled the board and there was little that Rocco could do." says one observer. "Roc- co’s done a terrific job or sorting out foe company and restructuring the manage- ment but it’s unfinished.” That job has been one of turning what Sir Rocco describes as a conglomerate into a business concentrated on hotels and restaurants. Disposals included Gard- ner Merchant, the catering group, in 1992 for which Sir Rocco says he got ClOQm more than Robinson was then offering to pay. Alpha Airports was spun off and the Harvester chain of pub restaurants sold to Bass earlier this year for £i65m. Forte has been criticised for being too centralised but “the idea that 1 take all the decisions is nonsense,” says Sir Rocco. "It’s not the sort of business in which one person can make all foe decisions.” One former excutive agrees. “He’s reduced layers of management and installed more direct itogg of communica- tion but once foe budgets are determined, the individual managers are left to get cm with it." Unlike Robinson, Sir Rocco has foe rep- utation of a workaholic. “It's a nightmare for foe rest of us." says one person in head office. He arrives at 8.30am and works 12-hour days regularly. “1 believe in working a six- or seven-day week," Sir Rocco says. “I like shooting and 1 occa- sionally take a day off because I don't take much holiday." As for Robinson’s bid, “he's two years too late," says Sir Rocco. "If he’s made his criticisms two years ago, he'd have been justified. We’ve outperformed him in foe last two years; give me another two years and he’ll see a very clean pair of heels.” Restaurants serve up a nasty surprise A private member’s bill seeks to end the uncertainty over service charges, says Nicholas Lander I t takes more than a sim- ple mathematical calcula- tion to work out foe bill at a typical OK restau- rant The prices on the menu are often not Inclusive of all charges. Some levy a cover charge - typically £1 or £2 - for each diner. Some automatically add a service charge of 10 per cent 125 per cent or even 15 per cent of foe bill. Others leave it to the enstomer to tip the waiter. Some attempt to get away with all three. But a private member’s bill introduced in the House of Lords this week by foe Earl of Bradford, himself a restaura- teur. would stamp out such vagueness and imprecision and guarantee no surprises at the end of a meal. The bill seeks to ban cover charges except for entertain- ment. It would require menus to quote folly inclusive prices. And it would end foe practice of presenting incomplete credit card slips to customers in the hope that they will add a tip to a payment that already includes a service charge. “Restaurant service charges are an unjustified anomaly,” says Ms Helen Parker, editor of Which?, the magazine pub- lished by the Consumers' Association which backs the present system, led restaurateurs : to quote menu sive of service will appear more lan competitors exclude it l^»rd 11 would make it istomers to com- ants on quality r-money because ottld be more dif- upporter of the ic British Tourist vhich estimates spent £2bn eating UK last year. Ms Sue Garland, ion’s bead of pol- >dy going into a but particularly ■eds to know in 1 it is going to * in UK restau- Etrked contrast to id French restan- a common source [or visitors. service charges waiters live on *st are paid only minimum wage tip of at least 15 i'ith 20 per top restaurants, iv tip both their K»ir “captain” or Hemal Revenue waiters on their • g per cent of foe ’bills they have rfr tax bill. Once social security contributions are fa»kwi into account, wait- ers’ pay-packets can be liter- ally empty. In France - as in many other European countries - restaurant bills Include a ser- vice charge of 15 per cent. Waiters are paid either a fixed salary or an amount based on service charges levied. Tips are pooled into 1e tronc’ and divided between the waiters under a points system based on seniority and length of ser- vice. A Parisian waiter on a salary typically receives FFr5,634 (£740) a month for 195 hours work, pins a trans- port allowance and a share of tips. In foe UK, only hotel dining rooms and the upmarket res- taurants follow the French example and include a 12.5 per cent or 15 per cent service charge in their prices. Other- wise, foe norm is for prices to be quoted excluding service. Restaurants generally offer a basic wage of £15 per right- hour shift and allow staff to share tips which can come to another £20 or £25 per shift. This adds up to an average gross wage of £270 for a 60- hoar week. In foe absence of legislation or self-regulation, this system can easily be abased. Waiters ask for additional cash tips, saying that the restaurant keeps foe service indicated on the bill. Customers can be duped into paying service twice by the practice of leav- ing credit card slips incom- plete. Increasingly, too, restaura- teurs who add service charges automatically to bills teU cus- tomers that service is optional If such charges are “optional", the restaurant does not have to pay value-added tax or National Insurance on them. Lord Bradford's Mil would outlaw such practices, but it will need government support if it is to become law. Minis- ters were conspicuously silent last year when Mr Michael Fabricant, Conservative MP for Mid Staffordshire, tried unsuccessfully to inttoduce a similar bill in the House of Commons. The Department of Trad e and Industry is still studying foe bill- Mr Jonathan Evans, consumer affairs minister, is meeting Lord Bradford early next month to discuss it Bat it is likely to encounter stiff opposition from restaura- teurs on the grounds that including service charges in prices would appear to raise foe price of a meal out. Ironically, the bill’s greatest asset may be timing: with its second reading set for Jan- uary 10, restaurateurs may be too preoccupied with Christ- mas and New Year celebra- tions to mount an effective lobbying effort. Telecoms giant rings the changes Alan Cane examines the task facing Peter Bonfield' in his new job as head of BT Tony Reason to be cheerful: Peter Bonfield, appointed BT chief executive M r Peter Bonfield, named yesterday as chief execu- tive of British Telecom- munications. smiles broadly when asked about his rela- tionship with Mr Don Cndckshank, the UK’s telecoms watchdog, whom he knows slightly: “Well, it's been all right up to now.” His answer acknowledges the ten- sions that have arisen between BT and foe industry regulator as both sides have sought to form an equita- ble regulatory regime in foe UK Some speculated yesterday that foe brisk, entrepreneurial Mr Bonfield might find it easier to come to an accord with Mr Cndckshank, a fellow entrepreneur, than Mr Michael Hepher, BTs outgoing group manag- ing director who is returning to a career in financial services. The fine, often tedious detail of reg- ulation, however, is only one of a number of areas in telecoms that Mr Bonfield - currently c hairman and chief executive at ICL. the UK com- puter company owned by Fujitsu of Japan - will have to master in short order as he takes foe reins at the UK’s largest telecoms company. BT is feeing more change over the next few years than at any time since foe early 1980s, when it was priva- tised and the process of telecoms lib- eralisation in the UK started. The principal challenges are: • Negotiating with foe regulator to settle the terms of BTs operating licence and foe broader outlines of the regulatory environment. Issues include the formula for foe “cap" which regulates BTs prices, the extent to which the regulator should be able to seek out and punish anti- competitive behaviour and foe ques- tion of who pays so that everybody ean retain their telephone number fear life. • Developing a strategy of partner- ships and affiances designed to enable BT to emerge as Europe’s dominant telecoms operator by the turn of the century. BT has already sealed impor- tant alliances in Germany, Spain, Sweden and Italy, ready to take advantage of the freeing up of the Europe voice telephony market in 1998. • Boosting profits and the share price at home against a background of competition from mere than 150 rivals including foe increasingly aggressive cable television companies. Allowed to offer voice telephony, they are now cutting into BTs profits. • Exploiting new technologies, which promise an array of services including video-on-demand, videocon- ferencing, virtual private networks and on-line information. All this would be a tall order far anyone, especially without a back- ground in telecoms, but Mr Bonfield comes to BT with a powerful reputa- tion as a manager and strategist. “He is exactly the right man for the job," says Mr Simon Carrington, telecoms analyst at Merrill Lynch, foe securi- ties house. “He is one of the most credible m an agers in the UK," says Mr Laurence Heyworth. telecoms ana- lyst at Flemings Research. An plftrtramcs en gineer by t raining his early career was with Texas Instruments, the US electronics com- pany. Appointed chief executive of ICL in the early 1980s when the UK company was in dire straits, he worked with chairman Mr Robb Wil- mot, another Texas Instruments alumnus. Together they secured the company's technological and commer- cial future by focusing on key mar- kets, cutting costs and developing a closer relationship with Fujitsu. ICL was one of the first computer companies to understand the impor- tance of “downsizing”, cutting staff numbers and overheads to match increasingly narrow profit margins. As a consequence, it has been the only large European-based computer company to remain profitable over the past five years. Mr Bonfield is informal in manner , direct in speech and popular with both ICL executives and foe work- force. He is highly regarded by Fujitsu. Mr Michio Naruto, Fujitsu board member for international operations, attended yesterday’s anno u n cem ents to make it plain that Mr Bonfield’s move was with foe com- pany’s blessing. Mr Bonfield says Fujitsu chairman Mr Takuma Yama- moto was one of the first people he consulted over his potential move. In his new role. Mr Bonfield will work closely with Sir Iain Vallance, BT chairman and chief executive for foe past nine years. Sir Iain, who remains executive chan-man says it was right to combine the two roles in BTs days as a private company in a competitive market, when a strong lead from foe top was essential. Now ♦ha picture has changed. “I see this as a second chapter in BTs development," he says. “Peter Bonfield will have foe prime role, but he will have me as a so unding board." There will be concerns about Sir Iain’s role as executive chairman, how- ever. What is there to prevent a repe- tition of foe bizarre events seen at Cable and Wireless, the UK’s second largest telecoms company, which ear- lier this week showed both its chair- man and chief executive the door after failing to resolve a battle for control of the company? Sir Iain says: “first, there is abso- lute clarity about who is top dog in an executive sense and that is Peter. We have complementary skills: I have known him both socially and profes- sionally since the 1980s so we know we get on." He adds that neither man has foe kind of ego that would lead to a clash of personalities. Sir Iain’s role after Mr Bonfield takes over on January 1 will be to chair board meeting and various com- mittees of foe board. He will not chair either the remuneration or the audit committee, however. He will be responsible for foe repu- tation of foe group, both nationally and internationally, and will act as a “bridge" between Mr Bonfield and the board. He will also monitor foe perfor- mance of BT executives and maintain relationships with shareholders and financial institutions. Mr Bonfield says be will encourage Sir iflin to make available his experi- ence in, far example, dealing with foe regulator “It has to be dear who is in charge in an executive sense, how- ever, and that is me. We could not have made that clearer today.” Mr Bonfield pays tribute to Sir Iain and bis fellow executives who, he says, have done an exceptionally good job in establishing BT as a company that is internationally admired. He would be happy if he could achieve foe same, but says it is hard to set criteria by which he will be able to measure his success: share price and profitability are important indica- tors but foe commercial situation will be be fraught with uncertainties while the regulatory umbrella remains to be decided. After the war, the dilemmas of peace The Bosnian agreement poses tough questions for Sarajevo’s inhabitants, says Harriet Martin F or Leila Alibegovic, a 21-year-old Moslem liv- ing in Sarajevo, the Bosnian peace agree- ment, initialled in Dayton, Ohio, on November 21, is a wel- come end to four terrible years. But it also poses a difficult question: will she be able to return to her home in the sub- urb of Grbavica, sow held by the Serbs? Under foe Dayton agreement the area around Sarajevo, including Grbavica, a grim ghost town of blown-out tower blocks and sniper screens, returns to government control. Lejfa could soon go home. "I don’t know quite what to fed,” she says. “I never expec- ted I could ever go back. I*m very confused. I think if the Serbs there don’t first leave 1 would be too scared to return." Others among the city's 100.000 refugees do not even have the luxury of this dileanna: they know they wfil never be able to return home. Hasan Fisovic, a Sl-year-oH Moslem, used to be a farmer with 100 acres of land near the town of Foca, in eastern Bos- nia, which, undo- the Dayton agreement, will remain in Serb bands. He is now employed by the Sarajevo city council as a road sweeper. Standing in the gutter, sand- wiched between traffic and a crowded pavement, he leans on his broom of bound twigs. “Although there is peace, I now know my life will never change," he says. “I can never go home." Mr Fisovic lives with his wife and 13-year-old daughter in eme roam of a house aban- doned by a Serb family. "It had been completely looted by the time we moved in. There was no glass in foe windows so 1 had to put up plastic sheeting. It’s freezing: There’s no elec- tricity or gas. We live in one room where there is a wood stove.” He quickly adds: “I can't afford firewood. It’s DM75 [$5390] per cubic metre. So we bum rubbish and clothes. Whatever we can find." Mr Fisovic earns DM30 a month from sweeping the streets. This is a relatively good income compared with many Sarajevans - the average government employee earns around DM10 a month. Bat it is still not enough to live an. "I cast even afford to buy bread every day on my pay," he says. “Every two weeks we get a Mt of rice and maybe same beans from humanitarian aid but it goes nowhere." RUNT life in Sarajevo: a hot dog seller reads a paper headlined “Peace’ About 90 per cent of Sara- jevo’s population is wholly or partly dependent on food hand- outs from foe UN high commis- sioner for refugees, collected twice a month from neighbour- hood distribution points. They consist of meagre quantities of flour, rice, macaroni, beans, salt, sugar and oiL Since the Nato air strikes in September, life in Sarajevo has improved, however. Electricity, which had been off for five months, is now rationed to 4kW per day, per household. This allows for a few lights, a television set and a washing marhine. although the use of storage heaters is banned. Gas - to those connected - is avail- able every two days. Most households get water for two hours every second day. It is now safe to waft in the streets. The trams are working. And for foe first time in Tnnnthi; the city is re-acclima- tising to traffic lights and traf- fic jams. Commercial tracks are allowed to cross from Mount Igman over the UN-controlled airport This has resulted in prices for everyday goods com- ing down dr amatically : petrol is DM1 per litre (it used to be DM10); a kilo of potatoes has fallen from DM6 to DM 1; and tangerines, previously unavail- able. cost DM2 per kQo. When implemented, the peace agreement will lift the siege of Sarajevo by returning to the government the swathes of Serbheld territory that sepa- rate the capital from the rest of the land under Bosnian government control. Until that happens, most of foe city’s population remains trapped. Although the UN now daily escorts a civilian bus across Serb-held territory to central Bosnia, few are able to get gov- ernment permission to leave, and fewer still can afford foe DM30 the journey costs. Even when the repairs have been done and foe b uilding s reconstructed, foe lasting hall- mark of foe war in Sarajevo will be foe way it turned every park, every football pitch and every open space into a grave- yard. In all, 11,000 people have been killed in the city sto ry 1992. Mrs Amina Kapisazovtc, 47, says that this is what came to mind when she heard about peace. “My family were unscathed. I am very grateful. It is my friends and my neigh- hours in foe graveyards that j can’t stop thinking about." Srecko, 45. who did not want to give his surname, used to be an economist before the war with a local publishing com- pany. Standing in the icy November sunshine, wrapped in a sheepskin coat, he now sells secondhand books from a stall in foe pedestrian precinct in the city centre. His random mix of _ Teach Yourself Italian, Your Baby and You, The Bistory of Walt Disney - is not cheap- titles cost between DM5 and DM20 each. But people some- how find the money to buy them. Srecko fa dependent on foe sales. “If I didn’t sell these books, my family could not survive, ft is our only source of income." things were norm Maybe in 10 years , will be." I „ i 12 FINANCIAL TIMES CURRENCIES AND MONEY MARKETS REPORT Pound firm By Pfifflp Gawfth Foreign exchanges yesterday slouched Into the weekend with traders unable to ghnfrn off the torpor that has gripped than in recent days. The tone for the markets was established in the US where the combination of the Thanks- giving long weekend and the unresolved Budget dispute was sufficient to k3I off any trading enthusiasm. The dollar finished slightly firmer in London at DML4165, from DM1.4138. Against the yen it dosed at Y101.345. from Y100.655. Sterling had a fairly steady day, finishing at DM2.2108, from DM2.2093. Against the dollar it dosed at Si .5608, from SL5629. In Europe the D-Mark lost ground against most curren- cies, including the French franc despite a 24 hour public sector strike. It closed at FFr3.440, from FFr3.445. Weak German cost of living data were seen as lending further weight to the argument that an easing of monetary policy may he appropriate. The big winner was the Swedish krona which contin- ued its recent advance to finish at a 21 month high a gains t the D-Mark, of SKr4.595. Two months ago it was trading at SKrl95. ■Ml — 1.40 Oct 1985 NOV Souqs FT BObI Oct 1 54 >» tiMVtMt m ruti i iw. . 2-18 IMS' : Nov r Oct .1995-'- Nov ■ . Oct c /. . ■ With markets devoid of any ■ Pound h Now York No* 24 £«X* ton 3fltt ir ■—Latea — - Prw. dose * 1.5600 1.5838 1.5568 1.5625 15571 15607 15476 1.S513 notable activity, strategists have been forced to wonder where the next move may come from. Mr Paul Chertkow, head of global currency research at UBS in London, said the inter- esting question was “whether Christmas has already occurred, or whether we will have one more swing at the currency markets." He predicted that December could turn out to be a busy month, revolving around whether or not a budget deal was reached In the US. Mr Chertkow said he did not believe a budget deal ■ was priced into the currency mar- kets, although bond and equity markets appeared to be rally- ing on the expectation of a cut in interests rates at the Decem- ber 19 FOMC meeting, follow- ing a successful budget deaL Mr Chertkow said if a budget deal was not struck, he believed that hedge funds who. had bought US treasuries with a high cost of carry might start liquidating their positions. “This could cause pressure on the d ollar that will be an obsta- cle to Japanese investors enter- ing the Treasury mark <4 in the New Year,” he said. Another Issue the strategists are having to pander is whether the pattern of the last two years will be repeated, with the dollar rallying in the fourth quarter, only to come a cropper in the first quarter. Apparently senior Japanese Ministry of Finance officials have be® casting around for way in which they might arrest this pattern. to focus more on yield. -This ties in with optimism an budget policies to give high- yieMers something of a boost,” he said. ■ The lack of movement In the major currencies may be a rea- son why currencies like the Swedish krona and peseta have performed well recently. Mr Tony Narfield, UK trea- sury economist at ABN AMRO in London, said that in these circumstances of lessened cur- rency risk, investors were able ■ Sterling rallied all week long as market sentiment shifted towards the view that the bud- get on Tuesday would probably be a mere sensible affair than had originally be® expected. The Rawfr of England cleared a £L05bn money market short- age in its daily operations. Three month L3BOR eased to 6£ per cent, from 6ft per cent POUND SPOT FORWARD AGAINST THE POUND DOLLAR SPOT FORWARD .• Nov 24 Closing Change BUfofler Day's Md One month Three months One yeer Bank of mid-paint on day spread high low Rato %PA Rare %PA Rare %PA Eng. trxlaoc Europe Austria (Schl 159656 +0.0112 480 - 836 15.5793 1 5.5213 159254 29 184060 26 1089 Betoken (BFrl 45.4801 +09609 232 - 090 459090 453390 483611 26 481681 26 446811 24 100-4 Denmark 85618 +0.0053 557 - 678 8.5799 89306 89541 1.1 09378 1.1 84751 19 109.7 Finland (FM) 85917 -09021 B61 - 973 88060 69540 89873 06 68793 06 . . 884 Franca (PFfl 7.6045 -09054 006 - 064 79225 79957 7.6011 08 76134 -08 76101 -0.1 1106 Germany tDMf 22108 +09015 098- 118 25152 22038 2206 2.6 2.1963 26 2.1651 28 1126 Greece fDrl 384.533 -0.135 353 - 712 368359 362.138 - - - - - 689 Ireland m 09684 -0.002 675 - 682 0.8712 0.9672 0.9676 18 06863 06 06631 0.6 979 ttafy w 248790 -195 603 - 918 249191 248293 249496 -39 2509.75 -3.6 25779 -36 mi Luxembourg (LfV) 484681 +09809 232 - 080 459000 459390 483811 26 481661 26 44.3811 24 1094 Nethettoxto (H» 2.4758 +09017 745 - 773 2.4871 24686 24703 2.7 2459 2.7 24133 29 1099 Norway (NKr) 8.7811 +09262 570 - 651 9.7858 9.7203 9.7487 18 ft 7289 1.4 96514 1.1 964 Ftortugot (EsJ 231911 +0937 189 - 432 232.731 230934 231651 -26 233.071 -3.0 re • 956 Spam (PW) 189978 +0948 183 - 374 189.682 188951 189.778 -32 190.718 -36 198118 -3.1 81.7 Sweden {SKr) 10.1568 -0954 463 - 672 109267 10.1440 10.159 -0.3 10.1636 -06 iai889 -06 079 uwitzBnana (SFO 1.7812 +09003 801 - 823 1.7850 1.7775 1.7741 46 1.7622 46 1.7093 4.0 1188 UK n - ■ . - - - . . - - 838 Ecu 12008 -09015 888 - 014 12029 1.1972 1.1996 18 1.1975 1.0 1.1891 19 - Nov 24 Cfoaing Change BfcVoffar mW-poW on day Day's irtd Won low Om iuouIIi liras mo o d at On* jwr J JP Morgan Rota 9* PA Rato MPA Rtfs HPA Eurapa Austria Belgium Dammit Finland Franco Q ra ma ny Greece SDRt - 1.04050 Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Portugal Spain Sweden Switzerland UK Ecu SDRt (Sch) 03FrJ (DKi) IFM) (Ffil (DM) m 09990 - 096 - 999 noogg noooa - . - - - - - Bred (RSI 16056 -09014 046 - 064 16112 16045 - - - re - - - Brazl too% UK daartng bade bean landing rata 6A, pc* cart, bora Fobruory 2. 1905 Up to 1 1-3 3-6 65 9-12 6 Cana m Tax dap. piOOjODO) 3 57. Can* or Tax dap. under ClOOOOO » 2*»c. OapoatawOtictoran lor cam lUpe. Axe, mnder raw d d e ne BJTMpc ECQO Kxed rate Sap. Export Ftoence- Mala no da* Oct 31. Tfl« Apsad Ma tor partou Nov M. 1S99 U Dec 25. TABS. SeTwmna 1 4 I* &07pc RNaranoa rata tor pwtadSepaaiaeSiaOciai. IMS, Schemas IV&V&Bllpt Finance HOura Base Rata 7pe tom NwaiCarl, ISOS Strike ’ Price Dec - CALLS - Mar Jun Dec 1 i* 1 Jun S32S 016 0.53 098 008 0.17 9390 010 135 061 0.12 015 ms 9375 093 010 096 090 025 096 Esc. rat brat, eras TUBS Puts 1722. Pravtoun dare open w, Cato 1G28B4 Puto 153681 BASE UEMNNG RATES — — % % Actart&Cooyary — & 7 $ OwicanLamli U75 * Roxbratfia Quraase ASed Trial Brt _X75 Enter Bark Lkntod — 7.75 conudlai Uniad to no ABBat* 875 HnanctaU Qen Bartc -750 iSSaSrtSaa GHanryAwba»tf 6.75 a RcfacaFto rang SCo^ 6.75 10 C* RB!«IWtolSco8and_t75 Banco BfcaQ vtcayn... 6.75 •Ctabmaas Mahon X75 askucr 8 Frtadhndar X7S Bankorcypnn. - 879 HMbfcBarkAGZutii .6.75 iltSha VWhSn^t . 875 Butocllntonl XTC •Hartoma Bartc 875 T5B X75 Brafctf jndta.— 675 Heritable &GraibvBk.&7S Unttad Sarti o( Kuwaiti 875 Baric <* Scotland 875 wasamual. — — X73 Unity Trust Bank Pic _ 875 Barclays Bank X75 CLHoereiCo 875 Wxstecn Trust _67S BritOctfRAdErat — 875 Hongtong S Shanghai. 875 WhUararay Laktaw .— X75 «acMnShtotoy&GiLld575 JJm Hedge Bartc X75 YoriahtoiBar* X75 CttarfcNA 5.75 •LscpoU Joseph 5 Sons &75 ^London ThaOrKtparntoBtaK.675 M ag ha jBankUd 875 toveatonrcBarMn &ifta6Co..- 675 MdandBtalk X75 CtocBLycmM 875 ■ Mount Barirtog 8.75 - ini Cyprua Roprtar Bank _B7S MatWaatmtoalar 6.75 - X75 WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25/NOVEMBER 26 199S WORLD INTEREST RATES OBIS® MONEY RATES November 24 Owr hyK Om mondi Three ITflW Stx mis One Unto, year totor. ' kapo' A i BeJgftun weak aqo France week ago Gamraqr weak ago weak ago Italy weak ago Netberiande weak ago Swttzertand week ago US weak ago 92 3fl 33 39 4 3fl 4 4 5W 5* SB S* Si 5« SB 5* 4 38 3!h 38 4 38 3U 3» 58 Sfl 5% 5* 5fl 5ft 38 SB 108 10*. 1016 101* 10* 10* 10» 10* 3K 344 3* 3K 39t 3% 38 38 2rt 2 Vi 2* 1% 2 3% 1*1 1ft 59 39 58 5% 5K 38 5* 5ft i a * ft weak ego S 99 Hi si 33 3% 5) B 1QH U>4 33 394 m II 51b 54 4 B 850 850 450 450 550 550 wo ■ • • a» - 510 - 510 850 35? .350 -£98 m s sm 5.00 - 525 950 Ifta 950 .1058 350 XBO 350 350 MO .» 2.00 ■ Sts - = &2S : _ 050 050 ' • A ‘ ,,-P . 53 » S* 34 3.43 X41 weak ago ECU Linked Da ■ 4 UBOR FT London Mtatrtnrtk FMng " IS S week ago - 5| 53. US tura cDa — BjBO 6.47 “ - 5. BO 550 5.46 SAf S3 Si 54 34 SORUtriradDa “ S 2 « week aoo - 51 3k 3j tor Par dan-S: ktona, Mta OS. COk^ 8 EURO CURRENCY INTEREST RATES : - * Sheri 7 days €toe Three 3bt . Ua term notice .. v- 54 3* 3U rad i Nov 94 Beiglai Franc Danish Krona D-Mark Dutch Odder French Rone Portuguese Eae. Spartoh Peseta Staring Sarins Franc Can. Dolor US Dote RaSan Lire Yen Aden SStog Short tana non a 4-3% f ■ Sh - 5>4 5lf 4-3% 3S 3V-3Sb 3* 5A-5A Sh aa-au BH fli - BA 9l« aa-flH as 2V - 2>S 2*2 6 - 5& 6-3% 3d 10A - 10* 10A *a - A 11 2^ - 21, 2& • caltor m US □ 3» - 4* SA -3H 313 -3*i JV - 3>4 a.’ - Bi4 sa - 9A SA -611 « - 2*t 2*s -!A 3H - 5ft 5U - 10^ 10.1 -u a - 2A 2A olar and Yon X 4’ 3 5. 6A-5A 9,; -9A 651 -BB 2/.-1H A-Mi 5H-511 ioA iaA - toA -A H - ‘i - 2,»« 2*a ■ 2*2 ottMRc two days' 3H 3H 6i‘« Bh 3,1 6B - 2 511 5H 4-3% «4-5 3% - 3\ 3V - 3*, Mr- Wr 8A-3A -• \ . '•* I »-A MSA BH- 6 B BA-aU #A 5H-3^ STsi «a - io,; vn r- w* H-A H-% ik-Vt to* -7. V. ■ ilBIBBBIOITrHfMBOaFUniiaESIMATiqPattototortlBrPtoftorttoriteB^^ Dec Mar Jui Open Sen price Ctmge Htfi Low Eat vol Open tat - 94.49 9465 +013 9468 94.48 31.333 '4121# 94.76 94.78 +0.08 9460 94.74 11,172 386B0 9468 9404 +098 9405 S4.B8 5069 ■ TIT ■nimi ■UIWMMt IW1IHES fUFFET PQtola Ol 10096 ~ Open Sett price Change * rHyn LOW Eat ml Opai kt Dec 96.11 9011 +0.01 9012 9011 15531 128213 Mar - 0133 9035 +093 96.37 9032 22633 184861 9608 9140 +004 9041 B037 18884 120272 Sep 9028 8691 +004 9032 9028 13686 108226 MONTH ■mtOLHU FUTURES (UFFET Li 000m points of 100ft Open Sett price Change High Low EaL wd Open tot 8063 8049 +092 8964 89.40 6198 - 21040 Mar 8804 89.78 -091 69.84 89.75 2884 - 30681 Jim 90.03 9091 -091 9005 9090 423 ..18QEB Sap 9009 9099 -091 9014 0009 424 0045 ■ THREE MONTH ■UHO SWISS FRANC | * I I Open Sett price Change Low BK.K4 OpnM. Dec 9890 97.96 -003 98.00 9705 4014 18805 Mar 9026 9864 -002 9699 9802 4444 .-25106 Jui 9130 9027 -OOl 9031 9806 1224 - ' 0085 Sap . 9023 9020 -0.01 9803 9019 308 ,«* B TlftlEE MONTH ECU FUTURES 0JFFE) Eculm poW> OM 00ft Open ■ Sett price Ctranga High Low Eat. vol Open ML Oms 94.66 9468 +095 94.69 94.66 502 "• 0879 MW 9402 9404 +005 94.85 94.82 580 5552 Jui 9402 9404 +005 94.95 94.92 129 • 3801 Sap 9405 9408 +008 9409 9404 257 1708 ei y-f*' . pari 1 -* 1 ' *4- ' n \' ■ ■ u «■ - UFFE (utuaa (too tredad otv APT ■ T»GIWINOIimBUIIOPOI15ligMM) Sim pototeol 10096 Dec Mar Jrn Open Sett price Change High Low EsL vol Open tot \o.:» 8408 9406 _ 8407 9406 38.101 331724 .ii -04.64 8403 +002 84.84 84.62 58.640 -420344 ‘ 94.68 9407 - +002 84.69 84.68 52,880 303045 4-«- ■ E •• ■ U9TWA1HTf — X FUTURES (IMM) Simper 10096 Dec 84.72 84.71 +001 84.72 94.71 1,112 8,182 Mar 8504 95.04 +093 85.05 9593 60S 7932 Jun - Bing +003 95.09 - 6 1014 HI: 2 s! fj* *• ... - ' rl- ■ - ■ MCpan Haw rips, are far pnwtoua day frlr-Jrt ■ BWWWtK QFTKWB fUFFQ DM 1m points of 10096 Strta Price 8600 9606 9060 Eat. wl: Dec Jan CALLS - Feb Mar Dec Jan PUTS — • Feb Mtf 0.14 007 006 009 0.03 092 003 004 I>n> 093 018 0.19 000 017 008 009 OIO r*.. 091 005 098 099 QAO 000 023 004 • Ctfa 6989 Ptaa 878a Pimrioua dayta open wl. Ctfa 2SBO70 Putt 361794 IflJFFg SFr 1m patota at 10096 «Ua« i . Strike Price 9775 9800 9825 Eat vol. CALLS Dee DJ22 054 005 033 0U2 017 Jun 0.61 0/40 024 Dec 001 008 031 kM. Cato 10/5 Pira aoo Prevtaua day^ open hL. Cato 10212 Pure 2B0e PUTS Mar Jun 005 008 009 013 018 022 QIFF9 LIQOOn polrrte of 10094 strata Price Dec - CALLS Mar Jun Dbg PUTS Mar 0B2S 0.32 078 198 096 005 8980 0.16 0.82 091 016 034 8973 097 0X8 078 0.33 OA5 Ext. ML toaL Cato 40 Pua eo. Prmtaua "toy's open InL, Cato 17W7 Pub 8266 Jon 032 040 049 -O,- ^ 1 -* T. . Mat 24 E Craeb * 409917 - 4I.Q2B3 207906 - 206.170 468390 - 4BBT9D 04677 - 04682 18729 - 39798 716498- 718090 5.7307 - 57344 Ian mmi UA£ 262790 - 2B2800 131290 - 133940 300090 - 300090 02097 - 02909 24820 - 24950 498390 - 459090 16726 - 39731 FT GUIDE In WORLD CURRENOBS The FT Guide to World Currencies table can be found an the Compiriles & Finance page in Monday's addon. A time is your most valuablecommodity fei'an.. v. hers vmir niMomurN need as.- i.stant v. tlu i .Mondial s suhsfantial rcsotirucs ami <. omfjrrlirnsive worldwido covera^o nm c! it f;tM. W r can help you provide an instant response. Tim hcmtlii customer care ..-m.Ko.rmiupmiHrmn-morunuu me eovcragc are immeasurable and seamless t- -| .:tn be administered, on jour behalf and branded in > our company’s name Ourc medical. Ic-gai. motoring, financial, insurance and travel markets. Total assistance with omericsf ^ i4S si in 5 . S MtlK ■ H WUK Ln WIKI WIKI 4U0 47JB 7320 73.70 7220 73* 1BU 7007 for & Bra w n — — MnEmpaw K3 S5= W if: nun bsjb 1004 1103 5722 0074. & ?V. c R E I ) I E— < RATING international A unique quarterly source of reference from FT Financial Publishing, essential to all players in the international credit markets — borrowers, investors and intermediaries alike. zl: ■ . r? FT-CndSt Ratings International provides the only comparative listing of the credit ratings assigned to around 6JOOO international borrowers by the world's leading rating agencies: Canadian Bond Rating Service, Dominion Bond Rating Service, Duff & Phelps, Fitch Investors Services, IBCA, The Japan Bond Research Institute, Japan Credit Rating Agency, Moody's Investors Service, Nippon Investors Service, Standard & Poor's Corporation, S&P - ADEF, Thomson Banknote**. In addition multiple tarings of individiia] issuers are aggregated into the unique FT-CRI Composite Index. Every three months, subscribers receive the complete list of ratings, cumulatively updated, in a 350 page bound book. New subscribers also receive an annually updated directory of the agencies, their rating scales and criteria. The ratings are presented in an easy-io- scan tabular format, with the agency names repeated on every spread and the borrowers running down each page in alphabetical order. 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Tel: +44 (0) 171 896 2284 Rue: +44 (0) 171 8962274 IT FINANCIAL TIMES Financial Publishing s« If § Sill iff ISIS 1 I 1 b -fiSfifi Sir 8 gfifiS SflSfl WORLD STOCK MARKETS AMERICA Dow at record in shortened session Wall Street Blue chip shares continued their record-breaking streak while technology shares recov- ered from recent losses in U pM post-holiday trading yesterday writes Lisa Bramsten in New York. The NYSE was closed on Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday and it closed yesterday at l pm. The bond market was to remain open until 2pm. Provisional figures showed the Dow 7.59 stronger at 5.04&84. The Standard & Poor’s 500 was 157 stronger at 59957 but still below the barrier of 600 that it had breached twice in the previous sis sessions The American Stock Exchange composite fell 052 at 528.33. NYSE volume was light at EUROPE NVSS vohNM Daily 460 — - sm _ _/ ’Ww wa r., : • to 13 14 1S-3B 17 *'21 [22 24... •. November -*nas ■■ • . 119m shares. The technology-rich Nasdaq composite added 853 at 1530.17 helping to recover some of the more than 40 points it had fallen in the past two weeks. The Pacific stock exchange technology Index was L8 per cent stronger. Intuit, a maker of financial software, and Gateway 2000, a maker of personal computers, both received a boost fr om news that they would become components of the Nasdaq 100 index an Monday. Intuit gained $1% at $74 and Gateway added $i at $31VL Home Shopping Network rose $1K or 13 per cent to $9% on reports that Mr Barry Hmer migh t become head o£ the tele- vision network. Class A shares in Giant Food, the US supermarket chain, added’ $2% or 8.7 per cent at $34% after the death of the chief executive spurred speculation that J. Sainabury of the UK, which owns a minority stake, might move to . take control of the company. Latin America BUENOS AIRES continued to rise in early trading, helped by strength to both Brady bonds and the ADRs traded on Wall Street. But by midsessian some profit-taking had begun to pmwgg , and the MfiTVai index was down 353 at 4 4854. Early risers jpnTndad the car makers Ciadea and Sevel, which gained a respective 6.7 per cent and 85 p er cent MEXICO CITY followed a similar path , rising early and then failing back by noon. The EPC index was off 4.10 at 2566.45 at mldaa«rinn_ Brokers said that the ahwira of many US investors was a contribu- tory factor. SAO PAULO saw the steep- est loss by mid-afternoon, with profit-taking blamed. The Bov- espa index was down 77954 or L9 per cent at 41.13L Canada Toronto was mixed in midday trade and the TSE-300 Compos- ite index was 2.81 lower by noon at 4,668.69 in weak vol- ume Of wha r fs ,, Actively traded Issues included Sherritt, the energy and fertiliser group, which lost cm to C$18%. Cott picked up C$1 1 /. to C$8K as Donaldson Lufkin & Jen- rette raised its rating on the beverage stock. Cott chopped in the previous two sessions on a poorly received restructuring plan. Barrick Gold prut an C$% to C$35%. Bourses gain ground on interest rate hopes Interest rate hopes enlivened bourses. FRANKFURT noted a higher dollar, Dow and bunds, and speculated on next week's Bundesbank meeting. Finan- cials led as the Dax index rose 13.66 to an Ibis-indicated 2510.92, up 0.7 per cent on the week. Bayeraverein rose 68 pfe to DM4053 and Deutsche Rank 97 flfg to DM67.32. HSBC Markets Said that conditions for the next cut in the discount rate were in place: “The D-Mark is firm, inflation is subdued and the economy is struggling." That argument implied los- ers. and there were several from the weak consumer econ- omy. the retailers. Douglas and Kaufhof, fell 90 pfe to DM4750 and DMT to DM442; and Ville- roy&Boch, the porcelain and tile maker hit by weak con- sumer demand, the waning of the building industry and the impact of the strong mark on export earnings, shed DM2S, or 1L2 per cent at DM206. A former loser, meanwhile, extended its recovery, Metafl- gesellschaft rising 35 pfg to DM31.15 on its forecast of dou- bled profits in 1995-96. ZURICH registered its third consecutive all time high with the half day holiday in the US putting a cap on activity. The SMI index rose 10 l 9 to ami. FT-SE Actuaries Share indices 11m 1X00 THE EUROPEAN SHttES 1300 HOD 1100 CtaM FT-SE Eurairack 100 144168 1447.43 144104 1447.70 1447J5 144175 USOS3 145057 FT-SEBwtradtZB 154041 1551.40 1551X0 1561.75 1552.74 1584X7 1554.87 15SLO N» Z3 Hw 32 hot 21 lira 20 Her 17 FT-EE Eoratrack 100 1444.17 1441.45 144&08 144158 1432X5 FT-SE BmttscX 200 154156 153230 1547X8 155238 1541X5 BM 1000 0VWOK UbMCW 100 - M5l2ft 2tt - 1S5598 LMfac 100 - 144MB 2D0 - 154822 T MW up 25 per cent on the week. Among banks, UBS bearers picked up SFr7 to SFrl.257 ahead of Tuesday’s news con- ference on the nine month results. CS Holding slipped 50 centimes to SFrll450 and SBC SFr2 to SFr475 cm speculation that both were considering takeover projects abroad. Talk that CS Holding planned a London bid for Standard Char- tered brought the response that the Swiss bank did not comment on market rumours. Among insurers, Winterthur, which has recently lagged behind the sector, jumped SFr8 toSFrm PARIS appeared to disregard another strike by public sector workers and farther signs of economic contraction. The CAC-40 index staged a pre- weekend rally on the first day of the new ai ^nrit, rising 2354 to 159055 to close unchanged on the week. One explanation offered by brokers far the rise was a con- tinued hope that interest rates would be eased next week. Support for this view came freon forecasts that economic data would show that the do wn turn in growth was larger thap expected. Yesterday, data showed that the consumption of manufactured goods had fallen by 4.4 per cent in Octo- ber, after a revised fall of 0.4 per cent the month before. Rate cut hopes lifted the financial sector, with Soti£t6 G6n£rale up FFr9 at FFr614, Suez FFr120 at FFr200.70 and BNP FFr550 at FFr23350. Elsewhere, there was inter- est in retail and consumer shares ahead of Monday’s expected government annminnamanl OQ an initiative for this sector: Carrefour gained FFr59 to FFr2,723, while L’Oreal and LVMH both rose FFr17, to FFr1556 and FFr968 respectively. MAT>RTD took its gains to 35 per cent on the week, the gen- eral mflav rising another 3 3S to 31L77 with turnover staying high at Pta45hn. Traders «aM that the market was supported by the strength of brads and expectations that rates would be cut soon. Once again this reflected itself in hanks, where the sec- tor rose 15 per cent and four of the big banks - BBV, Popular, ’RanlrintAr amj Kantanriar - made new highs for the year. The rate-sen tsitive utilities moved up, too, with Endesa PtalOO higher at Pta6590. AMSTERDAM ’S AEX index put an 358 to 467.37, up 15 per cent on the week. Cydicals fea- tured, Akzo Nobel up FI 250 at FI 177 and DSM FI 2.60 at FI 126.90. ING led financials with a rise of FI 2.10 at FI 103 still benefiting from Thurs- day’s report of a positive third quarter performance. VNU was among the heavi- est fallen, although brokers were nnahip to find a reason- able explanation, as the stock lost FI 450 to FI 223.70 but in scant volume. After the close Fokker, unchanged at FI 8.30, announced that its finance director had resigned. ISTANBUL fell in busy after- noon trade, prompted by heavy s ailing in Cukurova Elektrik, the power utility, and its asso- ciate Kepez Elektrik. The com- posite Index lost 66156 or 15 per cent to 42,159.46, after rebounding from a late low of 41546. On the week the index lost 1.6 per cent Turnover was high at TL9,540bn ($177.7m), with Cukurova and Kepez account- ing for nearly 40 per cent of the total. Cukurova plunged TL10,000 to TL42.500 and Kepez tumbled TL 12,000 from TL59.000. How- ever, the two companies had seen their share prices escalate by 120 per cent, and 78 per cent respectively over the previous four trading sessions. Written and edited by William Cochrane, Michael Morgan and John Pitt SOUTH AFRICA Equities in Johannesburg fin- ished a quiet day with the industrial sector stronger, assisted by rises in chemicals, but golds retreated from ear- lier gains. The overall index rose 195 to 5586.7, the industrial index surged 395 to 7,6345 and the gold index posted a rise of just (U to 15865. Weak Milan anxiously waiting for Eni offer Andrew Hill sees few ideas and even less trading A t the moment, there hope that it win offset the vola- restructuring and turn n may be only two peo- tility of other stocks, and tilt its ailing personal comj pie in Italy reaDv inter- the balance of listed Italian business. A t the moment, there may be only two peo- ple in Italy really inter- ested in the country’s torpid equity market One is Mr Lamberto Dini, the prime minister, who in his par- allel role as treasury minister is responsible for the L6500bn flotation of Eni, the state- owned energy and chemicals group. Trading in Em’s shares begins on Tuesday. The other is Mr Enrico Cuc- cia, honorary chairman of Mediobanca, the merchant bank. He celebrated his 88th birthday yesterday, secure in the knowledge that he had a grip over two of the largest deals currently awaiting mar- ket approval, and a hand in two more privatisation issues due next year. Mtv^nhgnra jg organising the IA257bn rights issue by Olivetti, the computer group, which began last week, and the L950bn capital increase by Ferruzzi Finanziaria (Fer- fin). the holding company, which will be put to sharehold- ers on December 7. Far everybody else, the last few sessions in Milan have been characterised by few ideas and even less trading. The Comit stock market index is grinding along at its lowest level year, closing yester- day at 56554, more than 15 per cent down on its high-point of 68054 in mid-February. Not surprisingly, Mr Dini and his advisers were obliged last weekend to price Em’s shares at L5250. the lowest end of the range they had set for themselves. Institutional inves- tors are said to have sub- scribed for nearly twice the numhoT of Bni shares available to tb pm aitiifmg h jt remains to be seen how many have turned orders into purchases. Italy’s savers, by contrast serai luke- warm about the country’s larg- est state sell-off to date. Eni will go straight into the Mib 30 index of largest stocks at the next review of the index, and the hope is that its shares will render Milan’s notoriously treacly market more liquid for those who want to trade freely. Eni will account for some 15 per cent of overall market capi- talisation. As a result, the stock exchange authorities hope that it win offset the vola- tility of other stocks, and tilt the balance of listed Italian companies away from the financial companies which dominate the market. The opposite is also true. If Eni’s shares, like previous pri- vatisation issues, perform badly, then the whole market will suffer, and both retail and institutional Investors may think twice about next year’s sales of shares in Enel, tbe state-owned electricity com- pany. and Stet, the telecoms bolding company. So Tar, tbe indirect impact on the market of the flotation has been negative. Italian mutual fund managers have sold other equities - about Fardn ShHB price & IndarOfebasad) 150— Farfln I Sovca: P? Extol . Ll,400bn worth according to some estimates - to create space in their portfolios for a f-VmnV of Eni. Analysts, however, are clear that there will be long-term benefits from this privatisation and its successors. Italy's shrunken equity market must co n t in ue to expand, in particu- lar if it is to win back foreign investors. In the meantime, attention will continue to focus on the older names such as Ferfin and Olivetti. Analysts expect part of the record Olivetti issue - launched at L1.000 a share, against the current trading price of L1.072 - to end up in the hands of the und erwrit ers. But they say that the longer term prospects for the com- puter group’s shares are good, if it succeeds in using the funds to implement its drastic restructuring and turn round its ailing personal computer business. Meanwhile, shares in Ferfin and Gemina, the investment company which is its mooted partner, continue to be subject to waves of speculation about the fixture of the two compa- nies. Since mid-October, the con- troversial plan for Ferfin’s merger with Gemina, which is controlled by Flat, Mediobanca and their allies, has been shelved; a Ferfin rights issue has been launched - ostensibly to shore up the holding compa- ny’s finances in the absence of an imminent merger with Gemina; and Medio banca b«s built up a 10 per cent stake in Ferfin, to ward off any alterna- tive attempts at a hostile take- over and break-up. Mediobanca's manoeuvring may end with the merchant bank being obliged to make an offer for more shares in Ferfin. The confused situation has not deterred the brave from betting on the outcome of the battle. This week, after Gemina appeared to come clean about the troubled financial situation at its RCS publishing subsid- iary. speculators reckoned that the Ferfin merger was back on, and Gemina 's shares enjoyed a brief rally to dose yesterday at L152& Small shareholders at Gemina remain distinctly unimpressed: in mid-February, Gemina ’s shares were worth L1.411 each. Add to these events the con- tinued uncertainty about when Italy will hold its next elec- tions and the lack of interest shown by foreign investors in the Italian market is not par- ticularly surprising. T he only shaft of light Is that discerning institu- tions - Italian and for- eign - are still interested in individual investment opportu- nities, including a shoal of medium-sized industrial com- panies which have decided to come to the market this year in spite of the poor overall per- formance of the Milan market If the trend continues, it could sweep away same of the endur- ing mysteries of the I talian financial markets. ASIA PACIFIC LONDON EQUITIES Nikkei slips as India regains losses Tokyo Cautious trading prevailed ahead of interim earni n gs from the banks as traders adjusted their positions after Thurs- day’s holiday, writes Emiko Terozono in Tokyo. The Nikkei index lost 24.61 at 18556.48 after fluctuating between 18.14657 and 1R256.48, a gain of 0.6 per cent on the week. Corporate investors placed some buy orders in the morning, but profit-taking by overseas institutions in the high-technology sector damp- ened the Nikkei's rise. Volume was 270m shares against 375m. The banks’ interim results come after the market had closed. The Topix index of all first section stocks fell 2.98 to 1,442.08. while the Nikkei 300 fell 052 to 270.60. Declines led advances by 594 to 426 with 154 issues unchanged. . In London tbe ISE/Nikkei edged ahead 0.42 to 1 5 3251. Overseas investors sold high- technology stocks. Kyocera feu Y30 to Y7.610, Fujitsu declined Y10 to Y1.130 and Toshiba lost Y4 to Y7I7. Many foreign investors had been taking prof- its ahead of their December account settlements and became net sellers daring fixe week of November 13 to 17 after four consecutive weeks of net buying. Speculative favourites were higher with Matsuzakaya up Y28 to Y979 and Tosbo Printing rising Y23 to Y83Q. Toho Zinc, the day’s most active issue, was unchanged at Y670. In Osaka, the OSE average foil 75.00 to 1949834 in volume of 33.6m shares. Nintendo, the video game maker, gained on a "sail an the rumour, buy on the news" sce- nario. The stock, which had lost sharp ground over the past few weeks, rose Y200 to Y7560 following Nintendo’s announcement that it would launch its new 64-bit video game in April, confirming pre- vious concerns that the com- pany would not market the product ahead of the Christ- mas season. Roundup • 1 A couple of the region's more embattled markets regained some of their losses. BOMBAY recovered 35 per cent as sellers covered their short positions, and a 98.02 gain to 3,042-20 left the BSE index 2 per cent lower on the week. Traders said that sratiment was boosted by a settlement reached between brokers and staff who had been on strike for about three weeks, demand- ing higher wages; however, they raid that the market undertone continued to be bearish. SEOUL was boosted by fresh news reports that the probes into the ex-president, Rob Tae- woo's slosh fund scandal may soon come to a dose. The com- posite index (dosed 1257 higher at 94455, 05 pa- cent lower on the week. State prosecutors said that they were considering charg- ing 24 leading conglomerates with bribery in connection With the slUSb fond anerafal, but Stmkyrag group compa- nies rose because the group was excluded from the list Sunkyong Corp common went limit-up, Wonl.000 higher at Wonl9,000. TAIPEI wait bargain hunt- ing in spite of Thursday's reports that China will hold a military exercise near the island. The weighted index closed 1152 higher at 4586.75, up 05 per cent on the week WELLINGTON featured a recovery in forestry stocks but fins was described as a techni- cal bounce as the NZSE-40 index rose 1250 to 2 , 1 5 25 9. flat an the weds. SYDNEY speculated further in Mt Kersey, up another 57 iwrt u to AS2.72, and more ftmn quadrupled since Tuesday morning on nickel fever follow- ing the major find at a neigh- bouring Gindalbie project in Western Australia. Tbe All Ordinaries Index, in contrast, rose just 050 to 245050, satis- fied with its 15 per cent rise on the week KUALA LUMPUR’S retail investors, who had rushed in to buy stocks when the market surged in mid-week, joined institutions in trimming their portfolios. The ELSE compos- ite index dropped 6.62 to 922.41, 35 per cent up on the week. piVS&P ACTUARIES WORLD INDICES gt WwW hdcas am owned by The Phene* Unas Ud, Goldman. Sacha SSSK^Kera — — — Tgum m pwa,m» Q CT US wv* S(athg Y#0 DM Currency M chg *km number <* « mri** Index fade* Index on day Austraka (8T% - Auatrap?) — Befaum |35» ■ . . Sr ArfCW - Canada (10®- OonnwMSM- .»,,«» 0.7 »m»> — Finland (Til ~ 771 . 0 s 11 a. 73 132.53 137.74 -03 44 151.38 101.64 11728 117.29 aO Ototeyrt*) 344,60 28115 28MB 30073 02 Haw Roro _.fl ^*£97 1S25? 18S25 224C9 -1-2 MAUVJOb. _08 06.12 405 5123 8251 -0* 04 137.82 92.44 108.78 8244 OO JaP*’ H83J -08 42096 28072 83003 43008 -0.8 Malayan 11081 , 5 9rUB 611.Q7 70SJ3 8012.18 1.2 UwraUffl M7.B2 1«23 19251 1M.77 Q.1 NaWOtmd US). ■ ■ -~- 3 "2 7*32 48*8 5LM 63.79 -03 Mew Zealand i14l — -0 8 21096 148^3 16009 19338 -04 Norway {331 - Iq 4 353.14 238107 273.1*1 2*2.18 -04 snwwotwi -1.1 35070 Z35£3 271.71 2»n0 -in Saudi Africa W5} — ng ijai7 10073 116-35 1«X2 OS SpMJ 08 ...... . -"J** JT, JnoA 202.73 234.17 308.17 02 SwMfcnUn 5! S 14*36 16805 18252 '02 SwtoBttnd i41} njs 145.30 9746 ***34 -05 Thu*tndt*a ISi! 2? 215.18 14452 106.71 215.16 -06 Unflod Wnfldom fOS g32,&4 15&05 18024 2*526 ftO □oar wiwaJ" «««.■* jr: -r ^ % Wdax -»n*K Inda* wdax cn oey 184.16 -Ol 174.70 117.18 13536 16SS7 Ol -in 163.03 109X9 12036 12&27 -08 ■ -05 189.08 128X3 14649 142.78 -02 - ,00 ,« MM ML2B 298.7B 1.7 & Go. and Standard & Poor's. The IncBoaa am compBad by Iha Rnandal Tanaa and tiWaot SecuddH lid. was a oo-toundar of the kxficas. — — WBXSaOAV NOVBWHR 22 1«I6 — DOLLAR HDEX Gran US Pound Local Year n V. Deter Start's Yon CM Cursncy SB week SB week age Yield bate Index Index Index Index Hgh Law (appro} . .1. . -135.10 14844 581 30 iilJ8 -u.3 io«.ra ■ - 1l7 12015 8SJ» 98-28 238.78 03 140S0 ■ 100.09 14&52 OO 26&S1 17003 206.79 209-53 07 200.89 134J2 15072 187.62 •SJ -1M 34257 10257 18R25 32*09 -1 2 -08 ^12 -OS 51X3 82m -06 .1 - .TTU 09 44 106.78 8244 OO unnm iwihvw" c nc USA t5M - APWCHI6501 Barm ,737}. NcnfeCUSSl - Pocifc B«a: 23264 15605 18 024 24526 OO “oi 212.13 14229 1»«5 187» OlO -fli 18708 12548 14424 18548 -03 "flO 2S7J0 1 7ft 70 20728 23520 02 SU Sw 11328 102.47 OO 03 147.14 imw _ni ,ccna 02 14 r. ic dww n - P*c#c B«ai _Jt 183.68 "o! -'Sv ftO 22006 1fi£24 1^8* “ HOHft America ftSVI jyz 167S5 lift* 1**® Eurocn En. UK (5311 29050 158.63 18323 220.06 -0.1 RacUeEx Japwi[3»0» 11W6 g® 23 HpU Es. USU7®9 on 18228 1 Z 2 S 2 141.52 1»W ^0 WM Es UK CC5® — — IE'S _o2 212.13 14820 18*35 _208J3 W^cxdbpan. 17811 .g- 77’ 17443 14ft73 1«3« The Wond Inte • -105-a^ F AiHaMmiaw LIFFE EQUITY OPTIONS OK" Jr % m to K* Jd qte asm in » m 47% 7 am nmwj 110 I 5 «M » 1Z6 12 auDmmeo a « < n q w r«1») 500 IIM M 8W» a t» m a » » is r2S? 300 7 Mtt IB 18 20 2Ri BAA AGO 4111 9ft SB 2 6 11 HBOM r«5) 500 « 2S m 1« 20 2S 14900 BBM sso ts sn an 7 »* a ps® raeivQ too t» m st» aw x «»? Boats offi an » I 14* n4 a (-371 SDO 12 27H 2B 22ft Z7 358 „ m l M Airways AGO 27 S O 3K U 2« „ r4B9 500 » II a 335* 37 43 ' ” BP 500 11 a as» » 17 2J» fSOSISJ 550 re I 1BH 44H 470 51 f* 9 ® 4 natw no u ire ire 2» 5 a nuap nsB«) wo a re io 13 i» a nwj Cabb A Wka 4a 37 si B ft 1! TTH prated r«zj 4£o »4H m m a m 34* (-435 CBnalMoa floe sr u m w WH zsh m 2 r»W) ess a SH 4SK 20M 3D5 <2H canun an ire are sre oium LITL. f393HJ 420 re UR 11 3» 3» 43 Star BSD 4K B H 13 30ft 3TH _ ri80*Q SCO & 4ftt B 34 55 a HoM SBC 75* aw BSD 37 B5 7* 2SK X P Hto (VSOH) 1000 tTK « P SB « S6K 1t«D 10 700 53 M7ZR 6 IBS 2375 r288K f738) 750 21ft X 4I24N42K47RIMBB KtagSdwr 500 « 5» SBh 5 MR 21 (-sq r53255j 550 13 V 3» 26 38 landSecar goo ire sre a m 7i» a CBOOHI rare 3 Q 58 sn SB 1 Uerta & S 420 37H V S 1( 5 10 ~ ~ ~ r*52) 40 ire 2TB a 15 1W 25R imhm 650 i « n m a » °i— rCTIH) 701 14ft MKX 5*15 63 TT ! Pnww&n 5B0 30 S B M 21 rsz3Ht 550 re a sn aw 4i c» Rsulrs OSS 6254 13 K 31 ftr0m (via 650 ire a sre «ir sre s c®3) ttoywl kaca 3B0 35H (4K 51 (Mr 20 Bate (-3871 390 ire Sre a 15 2B4 34H rant? Sdatey 360 m are sre s 7 m bus cs rs75>g sn re v an ire aa> a [-3711C SMTnra. 750 55 SM 70» 2R 11 13ft r7«K) no a sre sre isr m a SrtOBdsA OO SM H 77 9 14 Iff (-689) -700 IS 3M 4P4 24 34H 39 SM Chortd 550 6M 77M SM M 3 * rsaeH) boo sre Are n n sir a H * onB Sbwcw m m m * s n» is rtw r33SH) 3GB « ire Ti ZSR a E Forte Hornet Mr 550 a 4» 4M 13 33 r34Q rSSB) GOB 7 2m P AAR « 62 Mbkni ItMgr a b 7 re M re « n68 rao a » s re a 5 7 {Mt0 Utew woo Are cb n ts s sre __ (T222M) USD 1M 37R 51 37 9 50 LT! Zeneca BSD 7M W1X» a 3 (-129110 1300 50 TretBSH AAR 7M S« 0|te f* - Mi 1% - OsiPo reran Bee BSD zre are - » ih - (We 7SCD#W-3333»- Opto M iky Mb M H 0 I A« LT ' M My An M ray Aeg BAT Mi [-38710 BIB (*3Z4 MM (-786)0 M Traces fSBISJ Cate) Sea rss? sec C318! M 24 324 ere a a in 5 7 100 17 18 W 27 25 3T0 «» 58 3 50 M 150 OH 2» 200 320 J» 490 62 M 5 7 12 19 21 260 Band net 42D 250 s 42 IB 200 27 POO) AGO IB 170 250 42 45 X atom 420 470 52 67 4» B 12 r«7)S) 460 1*0 250 320 16 26 2TO HaMCrt 1» IS 130 T70 4 50 80 (*1900) 191 60 - - a - - Lramo 14D 22 M0 *0 2 30 50 Psa> MO • 120 17 80 110 7» rerinha 140 140 170 210 6 7 12 nite"ntete tele US Pi rate, te way IWOW SVI9SB. t POM Lerac atom worn imaW tor nts edCorv Maker Cted 23mA» USA. RISES AND FALLS BrWBh Funds Other Reed Merest Mineral Extraction General Manufacturers Oonawnar Goods Services INBBfae n rn M t hnreakmnt Tnras Othsrs TRADITIONAL OPTIONS FhatDa«1nga Nov 20 Expiry Feb22 LeetDeaSnoe Oac’l Satflamanr Feb 29 CalK HSBC (010 eta). Jarvta, TUkw Oft Puts Alphameric. HSBC (010 she). Tiriow Oft PUta & CaSe: Caremerafal Union. Prudentfai. Rfaee On Huy Fate Seme c Rfaee 01 the nee Fab Seme X 7 4 IX 100 72 2 0 12 8 6 56 65 73 89 249 431 455 145 128 394 656 768 1.913 51 41 133 232 273 824 111 85 347 507 523 1,686 15 23 20 94 92 104 107 60 243 427 459 1.164 99 58 447 541 437 2.042 80 25 53 241 205 253 715 500 1.742 3.138 3£82 (L369 LONDON RECENT ISSUES: EQUITIES Issue Amt Mkt Close price paid cep 1895 price P up (EmJHigh Lon Stock p Net 4/- OV. - FJ». Z M 10 9 fArion Praps 9 v- 308 PP. 473 XI 2B5 BZW Era Bermuda 2»1 *4 v- - P. P. BIS 103 101 BanMd & Raa 103 - FP. 5.78 64 X tChartwB M 64 v- 60 FP. a SB 71 65 10avidGfaas 66 -2 Rv268 145 P P. 59P 152 142*2 Enterprise Iran 148 WvB A - FP. 9221 95 X Guinness Right 92 - FP. 7BZ0 79S 191 Do CM ts TB2 - P P. ZOO 13 10 Do Wfararta 10 125 PP. 2&3 156 128 Hertaga Bath 158 - PP. 25-4 121 97 Horn GoveU 9 C 0712 - PP. 2JXJ BO 70 London Town X - FP. 32J0 95*2 83b Martin Curie Jp 94 - PP. 2.11 33 31 Do warrana 31 -h - FP. 14.7 101 97 Northern IMn 67 IX FP. 24 JB 102 X Perpebol UK Sn* SO - FP. 300 125 125 Prenfam untfag C 125 - FP. 135£ 90 95 Schroder Asia Pc 97 +b - FP. 745 IBS 173 Tom Cobfatah 187 -4 ua2.7 - FP. 1642 280 263 Wore Ooup 271 +2 RWv5.1 t AramaOw tnw tm ew He rat, ftte M ■teraen rf «e other nynteoto pleeae nl Sham Ssrvfcss none. RfQHTS OFFERS taaua Amouit Latest pnee P prid Up Renun. dale X M 571 IX ra 8712 210 M 271 155 NR 871 33pm 23pm Contort 16pm 15pm Froepon Leisure 38pm 33pm Mfartxm 63pm 36pm P B ri n qui n Ctoelng 40P- price P 27pm -1 15pm 38pm 36pm -1 FINANCIAL TIMES EQUITY INDICES Non 24 Nov 23 Non/ 22 Nmr 21 Nov 20 Vr ago -High Tow Ontoary Share 26S4.B 26302 26S6-B 26155 2847.6 2323-3 26683 22383 Old. dhr. yield *06 4M 4JB 4,1 D 4,05 4.40 4.73 4JB P/E rate not 15.73 15.65 15.71 15£5 15^5 17.44 21 J33 1535 P/E redo nl 15.63 15J8 1&S1 15.49 i5j68 174)2 2Z21 16.17 -For 1986. otter Snare tadn *n Lre npi tet hSoh 27134 SWB*: lorn 494 2BJBM0 FT Odmry Sal Max bug man 1/7/35. Ordfaray Share hourly dtansae Open ftflO IftflO 11JD0 12JM 13J0 14J0 1SJ0 18 jOO High Low 2646.7 20473 8 6507 2B5&8 2865J 2655^4 2656^ 2656.9 2655.1 265ft5 2S4&3 SEAQ bargate 33^54 29,983 Equity tungver pnff - IBBSJi l Equfiy bagoirwt - 35^75 i Shores traded (n*t - 6943 lOtsaraip taa-rrartre hreh— and wetaeK tmer. Nw 23 Nov 22 Nov 21 Nov 20 Vr ago 29,993 32.082 30381 3*377 20492 18856 2277.3 21900 16713 10664 3ft475 aftoro 37.524 40.853 22380 694-3 8662 7803 8210 47S3 HI LesEchos The FT can Our tnk with the l m reach adridon a l buslnasa raattors In Franca, business newspaper. Las Echos, gwasyou a u v opportunity to capttafiGa on the FTs euroooE peadoraNp wid to halrwr onjat the French business world. For nfomuSon on rates and further datate pfaaaa talaphone: T«*y Firxlon-Cr«»on+44 171 0733456 } ) financial times weekend NOVEMBER 25/NO VEMBER 26 1995 LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE; Dealings Datalis of business don* shown below have been takwi with consent ™ m Thursday's Stock Exchange Official Ust and should not be repnxlucad without permission. Details relate to those securities not Included In the FT Share Information Services. U nless otherwise Indicated prices are In penes. The prices are those at which the business was done in the 24 hours up to 5 pm on Thursday and settled through the Stock Exchange TaBsman system, they are not In order of execution but In ascending order which denotes the day’s highest and lowest For those securities in wNch no business was recorded in Thursday's Official List the latest recorded business in the tour previous days is grean with the relevant dais. t Bargains at special prices. $ Bargains done the previous day. British Funds, etc Trnmrayr 134,% sot 300003 - £13$* Corporation and Count/ Stocks amxnflhwn Cop 34% Sft IMfifor atari - £38(29*351 Mandttsiwtcay of) Rod SSc 2007 - E1»4 1 tflHoflS) 5afcrt (Cfry cfl 7% Ln Stk Smopatf - £84 5* (17No95) &nd«tand03anxtfid} ii4m Red Stk 2006 -£1224(17N095) UK Public Boards Port tH London Authority 3% Port of London ASlh 23/09 - £86 SooCWi Agrtc Sac Corp 13% Sob 5* 97/09 -£1074* tflND93) Foreign Stocks, Bonds, etc- (coupons payable in London) Abbey Notional Troeary Servo PLC 8% Gtd Nts i999(Br£iaoo l iaooai ooooo) - cbsj 6.1 (22N095) Abbey Natkmel Treraury Sarvs PLC 74% GW Nts 1098 (Br C Vat - £10 1 5 * Abbey Notional Treasury Seres PLC 696 Gtd Bda 3003 <& E Var) - £9*4* 36 IDO 1 * Abbey Notional Traaaixy Servo AC Old FRN IBSOfBrSVars) ■ $994 993? (17Na99 Pacta Finance Ld 104% Cnv Cop Bds200S(Br £50008100000) - £124 (ztNoes) BOC Group PLC 84% Bda 2Q04(Br£ Vera) - £9t Barclays Bank PLC 65% Nts 20Q4fflrfVart- oual - £SO>! tfiNoBS) Barclays Bank PLC 9375% Undated Subord Nts-C10e BrodtaTO & Btogtey Bufiamg SodetyCaHarad RtgRteNta 2003(Reg MuUCTOOQ) - £974 P0NOB5) Brtbsti Minays PLC 104% Bds SOOBBriMOOOSlOOOO) ■ Cl 164 (20NaS5} Hratsn Gas PLC 7%% Bds 3000 (Hr £ Ifta) - £99Jtf2No95) British Gas PLC 104% Bda 200T®r £1 000.1000041 00000) - £112% (MNo9S) British Goa RC 84% Bda 2008 (BrCVIar)- £1Dl4tf2No95) Bntoh Gas PLC 84% Bda 202S(Br£ Vtea) - 0974(211*65) British TetaeoronxrtcaBons PLC Zap Cpn Bda 2000(Brtn 00081 0000) - £73.7 I22N0B5) Brash T ri ooowmu n l oHms PLC 74% Bds 2003 (Br £ Var) - £98 4 2 British Tetacomnui leadens PLC 6%% Bds 2020OCV&3) - £1004* tflNaOS) Burnell Castrel CapttaflJarsuy) Ld 94% Cnv Cap Bda 2008 (Reg £1000)- £16042 2 Cable A WWhsk tot Fhra BV 84% GW Bds 2019(BrC Vas) - £984* (17NO0S) Cadbury Schweppes PLC 8% Ms 3OOO0M Va) - £10t4* (21N09S) Cheltenham 8 Gtoucester PLC 114% PwpJuboTO Bds ESOOOO(Retf- £1244 Chubu Bectnc Powor Co Inc 74% Nts 2001 (BiCSI 000.1 0000,100000) - SC3&4 P1NB05) DararcaKOCingdam of) 84% Nta 1S98 (Br C Va) - £9935 .45 (20NO95) Dbrorat Group Treasury PLC 74,% Gtd Bds 2004(BrCVa1ouM-£94A(21Noaq ECC Group PIC 84% Cnv Bds 2003P£1 0008 10000) - £9444 Eastern Group RC 8%% Bds 2004(Br£ Vara) - £99-7 .77 (20No85) Eastern Group PIC 84% Brfe due 2026 (Rep BdsSrfVas) - £954 tf1No85) Bf&terprtseFriance PLC 8*%GM Each BUS 2006 (Reg £5000) - £1024 EM Eniernba Rnaiee RC 84% Gtd Exch Bds 2009(Br£SOOCttl0c0OD) - £994 (21NOB5 Far Eastern Depar tm ent Stores Ld 3% Bib 200l(Reg bitagnd rnufll $1000) - $82 824 I20fto95) Goto Wataxna PIC 6.75% Nts 2000(Btf van) - Si 024 (21NOB5) Gfcmo Welcome PLC 84% Beta 2005(Br£ Vara) - Cl 024* 35 Guaranteed Export Finance Corp PLC 74% Gtd Nts 1998 (Br £ Vat - £1003 (22NO0S) Guaartt e ed Export Branca Corp RC Gtd Zero Cpn Bib 2000(Br£1 000081 00000) - £70.05 GUmsre PLC 104% Ms 1987 Or £1000 S 10000) - £104 pONogy t-fctfax BuHcMg Society 74% N* i997(Br£Var) - £10135 (20No95) HaBax Bulking Society 104% Nts !997(Bf£1 0008! 0000) - £1044* (2GN085) HaRtax Bukfng Society Rtg Rie NB 1999 (BrSVa) - S9935 10032 (I7 NoB5) Hanson PLC 04% Cnv Subord 2008 (Br CVar) - £1004, tobanoUarei Bank lor Rec A Dev 10% Bds 1899(Br£1 00081 0000) - £108 Ladbroke GrauJ PLC 84% Bds 2003 (Br E Varl - £1003 (17N095) Laid Securitas RC 94% Bds 20074% Und- Sut*R9 ClOOOtCnv to PrflBr - £110 021*05) New South Wales Trees Op Zcr- aCbnGldB(b2010(BrSA1 000.100001 - SA28 02NO&5I Mppon Telegraph and ToMphma Co>p6% Nts toooo^S Vorsl - SI004 Northurnbrian Water Group PLC 94% Bds 2002 (Br £ Varl ■ £1054 (20NO95) Pcerjon PLC 10>j% Bds 2008(Br€l 000810000) - £1134 C0NO95) Axmflen PLC B%% Bds 2003 (t* nxcoai oooom - E1034 panoa s) Rudentm Ccrporauan RC 74% Bds 2005(841000.100008100000) • 1I033 icnwm PuMiM Haany Secs 111 fete Gtd Zora Cpi Bcb 1 5/1 flflffliS 10001 - $834 07NO3S) RMC Capita Ld 84% Cnv Cap Bds 2006 (Br £5000850000) - £1304* Royal Bank of ScoXond PLC 64% Bds 700J(Br£Vara> - £90lj (171*05) Royal Sank of Scodand RC 94% Undated Sibord Bds (Br C Var) - £994 R0No95» Royal Bonk or ScoOend PLC 94% Suoora Bds 201S(a£1(m]81000000l - £1024 C1NoS5) Royal Ba* or Scodarel PLC 103% Subord Bib 2013 (BrEVai- £1104 (XMo95) Samsburyii) RC 8JS% Nb 2000ff%rt - £102% (20NO95) Sarabuy (JKOtamai HmMLO 84%CmiCapBib 2005fBr £50008100000) - £119 (1 7No05j Scohdh AmkMbie Finance PLC 83% Undsnd Subord Gtd Bda (BtCVar) - £874 1177*351 SEEBQARD PIC 8>2% BdS 2005(Br £ Ito) - £1004 Sowre Gatwalo 7375% f%p Stbard Mt (Br £ var) ■ E94>* 4C2NOG5) Tarmtc Ftrtenee (Jersey) Ld 94% Crer Cep Bds 2006 (Reg £1000 ) . EBs 4 A Thames Wu* PLC 9>a% CnvSubortBrte 2006|BlCS000850000) - £1334 S4 Toyota I 7.7S9 Toyota Motor Cwportatat 5.625% Brb <998 (Br $ Ver) - $100 U-Utag Mains Transport c o t p otx8 u rii4% Bds 2091 IRbo In MuS *10001 - 886 CnN095) Urdowr NV 7^% Bcb 2D04(BrS Vtas} - S10S3(22NoB5) WBftiur9(S.GJ Group PLC 9% Pfirp Subord Nts (RapNtsBrt) - £824 Welsh Water USBes FVunce RC 74% Gtd Bda 2004 (BrfVorlous) - £22 li B2No99 Yakshlre BecMOty Qraifi PLC 84% Bcb 2005(BiCVBr)- £10132 YtxfcsMfa aorteky Group PLC 94% Bda2Q20(Reg£l Inr nuo Otareol) - £1034 GONoes) Abbey Nttfaner Treesuy Seres PLC ESCSOOatn RRNIZMr - (¥8822 I20NO95) BaywtstaM Hyportieken u Wechsri Bk$200m 6.125% MS BA1/99 - $101 (21Na9q D ayw Bch e HypoBiekai u. Waritsel . BkSK400m 7% Nto 30710/2000 - DK1013 1O13(22N0Oq Co mm a w reetih Bonk at AusMa SAITSm 9% NIB 15/8/2005 - SA1014 (17N095) Do Nattanakj Irtueateringsbank NV ECUlSOm 8% Debt Insirumem 6710*58 - ECS83 Deutsche PtandtaM-Uhd Hypo AQ$200m 84% NU 20/12/08 - 910135 (20Ne84 FMandmepuCAc oh £500m 7% Bds 267107 2000 - £984 4 state Bank of New South Wales Ld 9% Bds 2002 (Br SA Va) - SA103 103.15 Sudwnstdaubciwi.ar»i*whkCBpMiasRC $250m 6% Debt Inst 20riQQ8 - SHXL95 1014 Swedenpongdom oq ECU500m 8% Debt Irat O/S/96 - EC10Q31 (21N095) BwedenOdngdarn oQ ECLBOOm 74% Ms 307 8/2000 - BCl 023 (17Ncfl^ Swiss Bank Corporation E2Hm 8.75% Subord Bds 2Q/B/2QD5 - £10Q4 pONcBS) 1 Motor Cram Oor p a a tlon S260m i. 75% Nts 19/12/97 - $10335 10*3 5 Toyota Motor CredK Gaporation $750m 6-126% Nts 11710/2000 - $1003 C21NO05) Sterling Issues by Overseas Borrowers Austral le(Co»Tvnonw cg fth oQ 133% Ln Slk 2010 ■ £140l 2 piNcflS) European investment Bank 9% Ln Stk 2001 (HeQ)-£T0e4 (22N095) Bxupean tovestmoS Balk 94% Ln 31k 2009 • £111 4piNafi$ Euapean Invastmere Bank 104% Ln S0( 2004(ReB) - £1154 piNoaS) Hytao-Ouebec 12.75% Lh Stk 2015 - £13333 feWO Ld 1 54% ULS 2000(WXh S OpdonjPh - £1454* (17NoB5) Near ZMand 114% 9tk2006(Retf - £1224 (2214005) New Zeetano 11 4% S* 2014{Reg) - £1294 (21N095) Pntroleos Mexlcanae 144% Ln Stk 2008 - £107 (22No9G) SpefeH»ngdcxn al) 114% Ln Stk 2O10peg) - El 28,', (21Na05) Listed Companies(excluding Investment Trusts) ABF Investment RC 54% Uns UtStt 87/ 2002 50p - £43 ASH CeplM FtancsfJeraeyJljd 94% Cm ' Cw> Bcb 2006 peg Unto 100p) - £714 (20NOS5) ASH CwXtal Ftancegereey]Ld 94% Qnv Cep Bds 2006 (Br £Ver) - £88 (21N095) Abbey National PLC 104% Non-Cun Sw- ing Ptf - IOTA Abbey National PIC 10 1/18% Bering Csp(Br of EIOOO) - £10535 (20No95) Aberdeen True! PLC Wts to sub tar Ord - 68 (17NDB5) Aberdeen Treat RC A WB to Sib tar Ord - 65 p2NoB5) Alexanders HUgs PLC ’A'(M.V)Oid lOp - 12 (20NO95) Alex on Group PLC &2Sp ^4e0 Cm Cton Red PH lOp- 694 «M4 2 AM Doneoq PLC ADR (tri) - $736 AM Dtanecq PLC 54% Clxn Prf £1 -83 02N09S) AM Domecq PLC 74% Cum Pri El - 80 Ailed Domecq PLC 1ll*« Deb Stk 2009 - £1274 (1714035) AHed Domecq PLC 74% L/ns Ln Stk 93/90 - EOS AHed Domecq Rnanctal Seres PIC 64% GUCnvStixxdBdaaioe RegkAAtKIOOO - £854 AM Domecq FtoencW Seres PLC 64% Gtd Cm Stbtad Bds 2008(Br £ Var) - £95 (21N095} Ahfa PLC 53% Cnv Cum Non-Vtg Red Prf £1 - 82 I21N086) American Brands toe Shs o I Com Stk 83.125 -E27J6* Amertueh Carp She ot Com Stk SI - $554 (21N095I Airtnex PLC Ord lr£035 - S3 8 Andrews Sykes Grotm RC Cnv Prf 50p - 70 Angfcto Wsta PLC 54% todex-Ltotaed LnStk 2000(6474%) - £1344 Aede Property Rdge PLC 10 5ne% 1st M»g Deb Stk 2011 - £1094 £2Nd95) Asprey PLC 625% Cum tod Pri £1 -96 4 Automated SeaaityfiUQs) PLC 5% Cm Cum Rad Prf £1 -38 Automated SeeutMRdgs) PLC 6% Cm Cun Red Prf D - 384 AutomoUvo Produaa PLC 9% Cun Prf £1 - 95484 BAT Industries PLC ADR (2:1) • $173182 BET RC ADR (4ri) - $8 .124729 (21N095) BET PLC 5% Pop Deb Stk - £S5 C0Na95) BOC (tokto PLC 124% Uns Ln Stk 2012/17 - £1324 BTP PLC 73p*(e() Ortv Cun Rod Prf 10p - 186 (22NoBS) BTR RC ADR (4:1) - 520-4 .45 Benk of lreland(GavaTiar 8 Co Of) Units NCP Stk 6raA K18K9 UqukSaBon . IC13 (21NO&S Bank of SeodandfGovemor 8 Co oO New 94% Non-Cun hd Prf Stk £1 -1114 4 (21 Nog 5) Boner Homes Group PLC Old lOp - 534 44 5 7 Bodays PLC ADR (4:1) - $503 (22ND95) Bardayo Bark PLC 12% UraCtp LnStk 2010 • £1234 *4 4 (22No95) Barclays Bank PLC 16% Itoa Cap Ln Stk 200207 - £1404 [22*105] Button Croup PLC 72SP (Net) Cnv Rad Prf 23p - 77 (22N095) Button Otxjp RC 1f3Sp Cum Red Prf 2005 lOp - 97 4 6 8 4 Banau Ekptorswn Ld Ord R031 - 125 30 B0NO95) Barr 8 Walace Arnold Trust PLC Ord 2Sp • 200 24 t*2No95) Sms RC ADR (2:1) - $21 4* Boas PLC 104% Dab Stk 2016 - £1194 Bass RC 4 4% Uns Lit Stt 82/97 - £954 (21No0S> Bass RC 74% Uhs (3 Stk 92/97 - £984 Boss kweetmenb PIC 74% Uns Ln Stk 92/ 97 - £994 (21N085) Mays PIC 10% Cum Prf Cl - 100 (2tNoB5l B arge— 1 d-y AS *B* Non Vtg 9ts NK23 - NK1294* Bamtoghom Masrires Buridtog Sue 84% Perm M Basing Sa £1000 - £984 9 4 BM Circle toduslrtes PLC ADR (K1) - $43 Btoe CMM toduatnes RC 54% 2nd Deb SIR 1984/2009 - £774 C171**5) Bkie CtoSa totkotries PLC 64% Uhs Ln S&41975 or af!) - £88 (22N095) Bradtad 8 Btogley Bukbig SoeHtyl 1 4% Perm K Bearing STB £10000- £120 Bradford 8 Btoglqr BtaKtng Socbty 13% Pomt Ml B—tog She £10000 ■ £1344 Brat* totamatfond PLC 9% Cun Rad Rf £1 -984 Brant Walter OtxiD RC Wts kj Sub tor Ord -04<22f*fi5) Sent Waftar Group RC 83% 3nl Nan-Cum Cm Red 2007/10 D -04 (Z2N0S9 Srtanl Water PLC 84% Cum tod Rf £1 • 114(21(4095) Bristol Ware PLC 124% Red Oeb Sta 2004 - £1224 (20No83 Bristol warn PLC 4% Ctxa Deb Stk hd - £414* FT-SE ACTUARIES INDICES The FT-SS 100, FT-SE Mid 250 and FT-SE Actuaries 350 imfices and the FT-SE Actuaries Industry Baskets are calculated by The International Stock Exchange of the United Kingdom and RepubOc of Ireland Limited. © The imamatJonal Stock Exchange of the United Kingdom and Repubfc of Ireland United 1995. At rights reserved The FT-SE Actuaries All-Sham Index Is eafcutetad by The Financial Times Limited in conjunction with the institute of Actuaries and the Faculty of Actuates. O The Financial Tbnes United 1995. fit rights reserved The FT-SE 100. FT-SE MW 250 and FT-SE Actuaries 350 indices, the FT-SE Actuaries Industry Baskets and the FT-SE Actuaries Ail-Share Index are members of the FT-SE Actuaries Share Indiras series which are calculated in accordance with a standard set of ground rides established by The Financial Tines United and London Stock Exchange m conjunction with the institute of Actuaries and the Faulty of Actuarial “FT-SE* aid “Footsie" are Joint trade marks and service marks of the London Stock Exchange and The Financial Tmes Limited. Btatoi wimr HUgs PLC Ord £l - £1 1 3B (Z2NOM) Bristol Water HUgs PLC 6.75% Cum Cm RodPrf19»Sha£1 -18SpCNoaS) Bristol a Ww* ample s PLC 53% Cnv Rod Prf £1 - 81 PINOS® British Land Co PLC 8% Staiord tod Cnv Bdsffsg) - £88.71 4 (21No95) Brtnsn Lvd Go PLC 84% istMtgOflbBds 2036 p%0) - £1(714 094035) Brush Petratoun Co PLC 6% Cun 1st Prf £i -9K22NOS5) Brtttsfi Petrolam Co PLC 9% Cun an Prf £1 - 102 (22No05) BAbh Pdtytoene Iraifltrtea PLC 9JS% Cun Red Prf £1 - 112% 3 Btfnsh steal RC ADR H0:1J - $2536121 389085 6.195 3 346 4 4 -38 4 Brush Steal PLC 114% Dob Stk 2016- £1274e»to95) Brfflsh Sugar PLC 104% Rod Dab Stk 2013 -019% (1714095) Brunei HdUngs RC 43p (Not) Cnv Curt Rad Prf 20p - 894 (21NeS5) BUgkVLFO * CO RC Ord StlS 5p - SO BtAmcrfHPJHdgs RC 84% 2nd Cum Prl Ei - H24 34 BtenoOLP-yfidgsPLC &4% Cm Prf £1 - 118C0Noe6) Burmen Castrel PLC 74% Cun Rad Prf El - W* Burnah Csstrol RC 8% Cum Prf £1 -80 P0NO99 Burton Group PLC B% Cnv Uns Ln Stk 1906/ 2001 -£94454-5566 CeffynsPLC84%CunlttPrf£i -88 piNo« CaRyns PLC 10% Cum Prf £1 - 108 (71NO05) Ctftomta Energy Co Inc She Of Cam Stk SO 0675 - $16951866 (17?«a9S) Cambridge water Co Cans CM Stt - £8400 (20ND9Q Canto O tg mum Group PLC 104% Cum Rea Prf £1 - 10B (iTNafiS Colton Gomnxjf ia tkna PLC ADR (2:1) - S31« Carlton ComnuxecaBam PLC 74% Cm Sttoard Btb2007(Reg ESOOQ - £146 CONoa fi) CatopBer Inc Shs of Com S0( $1 - SS94* 44> 32 Vt -TKvt. Cantax Corporbton Shs of Com Stk $025 - $324 (17No&5) Chartwood Ataneo Hdgs Ld 74% Urn Ln Stk BOP - 33 (17N095) Clairatand Ptaca Htadhxp PLC 124% M Oeb Stk 2008 - £127 J22NC95) Coastal Corpqraton Shs at Cam Stk $033 1/ 3 - $324 (2lNa9S) Coeta Pwons PLC 64% Lkv Ut Sta 2002A7 - £874 (20No05) Coats Viyate PLC 49% Cum Prf £1 - 63 P2M69 CahanfAJ 6 Co RC NonV *A* Otd 20p - 810 Commentol LMwi PLC 33% Cum Rad Prf £1 -85 Caminbdal Un ton RC 84% Cun tod Prf £1 - 107 4 4 4 4 Commercial Untan PLC 84% Cun tod Prf £1 ■ 115 4 Co-Operstlvo Bank RC 025% Nan-Cum tod Prf £1 -1084 4 Ooopar (Frederick) PLC 66p (Net) Cm Red Giro Ptg Prf IQp - 73 (20NaBS) Oarttatf RC ADR (3:1) • $444 Oordtant RC B% Cm Urn In Stk 2015 - ESB OutnAk PLC 74% Uns Ln Stk 200CV05 - £954(17N095) Coventry Bukjrg Society 124% Perm Mer- est Beemg 9b £1000 - £125 4 4 4 Daly Mrf S General Truat PLC Onl 90p - £1238 (2lNo96) Daigety PLC 4£5% Cum Prf £1 - 67 DabroTOms PLC 74% 2nd Deb Stk 91/96 - ES84 ptttoOJ^ Deben»tom3 RC 74% Um Ln Stt 2002/07 - E9l4(2CNQ8S) Dancora PLC 6^5% Cum Cm Rea Prf £1 - 83 Dtxons Gra*) PLC ADR (3:1) - $19.05 (17N085) Dover Ctap Com SOc $1 - $3844 Ecdeatasflcal Insurance Group RC 13% Deb 8tk 2018- £128 (22 *j95) Bdos RC Od lOp - S8J2 p 525 30 B Oro hrotogsegrioraaon Co PIC Ord lOp - 642£21No9S) D yrfWl m bledoti) PLC Ord 25p - £6 gZNc85) Bnees PLC 62Sp(N80 Cm cun RkI Prf 5p - 67 84 P2Nc95) EnMpraeOO PLC 114% Us Ui SOc 2018 - £1234 (17No9Q Ericaecxi(LMJ(TeMar>iridiebotagetiOid SK23 Ser*B* fftogl - $2335 SKI 50 4 1 1 22 4 A ASi 4 34 38 95 98 2 .19 .65 Euro Disney SCJL S» FTB (Depository Receipts}- 160 4 73 45 58 Euro Dtroey S.CA. She FRS (Br) - FR1295 3 3 317 92 93 35 35 .1 .15 Euehroel PLCiEurotumat SA Urta (Stoouam tosotoed) - FR7.144 4 35 35 9 9 .60239 .81 35 .05 37 39 J BRandi RC W tafte to aub tor She - 134 eiN095) Exptarafcn Co RC Ord Sta 5p - 345 51 (2114096) FBD HokSnga PLC Ord K330 - H35 P$Na9S) Ffeat Chicago Corp Com Stk $5 - £42.7 Ftat Debenture Finance RC 11.125% Sevar- tdy ®d Deb Stk 2018 - C12&4G6 pONo95) FMt Naflonal BiMng Society 114% Perm tot Beeitog She £10000 - £114 ?INo95) Raona PLC ADR (4:1) - 5184 4 (2lNo85) Ftoarre PLC 54% Ltoe Ln Stk 2004/09 - £81 (21N095) Ftowttan RC 6>2% Cum Prf IR£1 - KQ33 &2No95) Ftaro Gldi« PLC Wts to aub lu Ord - 50 (22No85) Ftera Group PLC 10% Cum Pit £1 -97 (Z0NOS5) Fades Group PLC Onl 5p - 57 Formtoster PLC 11 4% Cun Prf El - 120 (211*35) Fate PLC 9.1% ttos In S* 950000 - £100 l17No95) Frienray Hatob RC *4% Cm Cum Rad Prf £1 -87i2plNo93 Friendly Hoteb PLC 5% Onv Ciro Rad Prf £1 - 193 (23*295) Friro«*y Hotato PLC 7% Cm Cum Red Prf £1 -94 Ftwyti cro E states PLC 1335% 1st Mtg Deo Stk 2000/03 - £105 GKN PLC ADR (in) - $124 (22No95) aT. CMeaowtnkrxJLd Old 9031 ■ $38* General Accident RC 74% Cun tod Prf £1 -101 4 4 General Acekkro PLC 84% Cun tod Prf Cl -11644 General Bactrie Co PLC ADR (in) - $494 GEbbs & Dandy RC Ord lOp • 91 Gcrid Rekta Cool Ld R030 - 33S (21NO05I Goodwin PLC Ord 10p - 31 (20Na95) Crttod MetropgStan PLC 5% Cun M £1 - 55 (22N095) Grand MetropaitroRC 64% Cun MCI - 65(22NaB5) Qnat Rutfcref Estates PLC 93% 1st Mtg Dab Stk 2016 - £108 (22Na9S) Groat Uraver-ae Storm PLC 64% Red Una Ln Stk - £74 (20NO951 Oraeraas Group PLC 8% Cun Prf £1 • 103 (22No95) GreeruRs dreup RC 114% Deb Srii 2014 - £1284 4 PlNo05) GroenUts Group PLC 84% tod Urs Ln SBc - £974 C22No95) Greenate Group PLC 7% Onv Subord Bds 2003 (Rs9 - £124 .19 4 5 00*3*51 Greenahs Grauo PLC 7% Cm Suborft Bds 2803 (Br) - £723 1234 Gurams PLC ADR (5:1) - $353 HSBC HUgs PLC Gnt»10 (Hong Kong Reg) - SH1 1 1.125881 40565 3526 3819 381745 9 2335375 HSBC HUgs PIC 1139% SuDorf BdS 2002 (Peg] - Ei 154 4 HaHax BUUbg Sotaety 84% Perm Ira Beu- Ing sm esoooo - £924 K 2Noas) HatSax BuMng Society 12% Pantt kit Bear- ing 9s £1 (Hag (50000) - £125,'* HetmaRC 11% Cun FWE1 - 137(Z0No95) Karabros RC Nan Vtg £1 - ST (31Na95) Hardys S Hansons RC Ord 5p - 287 Hmies no Shs al Com Stk o( NPV - Higgs 6 H9 RC 7% CUn Prf £1 - 65 1221*3951 Htedown Hdgs PLC ADR(4:1) - SS35 Home HautoQAasodatnnLd Zero Cpn Ln Stk 2027 -4624 P1N095) Hoctansons Group PLC 525% Cum Prf £1 - 87(2214093 Htxtong Fames Ctxporaoan Ld 11 l 2% Dtb Stk 2016 - E120H (Z2N0S5) ■a PLC 54% Uns In Stk 2001/06 • £784 ?1Na93 tSHnteayanFuxfNVOdfUCi -tii4* iceirod Grotto PLC Cm Oro Rad Prf 20p - 122 ■ngromiMarrla Ld 64% Cun trO Prf Stk £l-50(22T4o85) MtB&W Oorttrt Services So PLCOrd 10p - 1004123 Irtdi Lite FLC CM MB.10 - C2.42 233 p 250 Jartane Menason Wfcs Ld Otd $026(Her- nuoa Rag«B0 - £33 tlh4095) Johnson & FWt: Brown PLC 1135% Cum Prf £1 - 104 CONoHS Jonraan Grotto Cteanos PLC 73p (NeQ cm OraRedPtliOp- 1204 1 G2No05| Johnson Groui Cleaners RC 83% (NeQ cumPrf-aocoNasg Jtfxotui Group PLC 10% Cun PrlCI -105 pTNoSS) Juys H«el Grouj PLC Ord KIW5 - RS-12P 215 7 Ketsay nouansa RC n4% Cun Rf El - 120 (2CNO05) Ktog & Shaxaon tfdm RC 5% Cun 2nd Rrf £1-60 02Nc85) KtogMiwPICACn (fcl) - S16.T KorateEuape FUal Ld SHSffK to to) SB.W (Cpn 6) • £4230 Kveraner AS. A Shs NK1230 - MG254 63 3 LtaSxohe Group PLC ADR (1.-1) - Si 32 (17Ne05) Land Secutitee PLC 9% let Mis Dab Stk 96/ 2001 - £1004 pINoBS) LASMO RC 104% Deb Stk 2009 - £11437 4 Lsbom Btatnun Rflnes Ld Ord R031 - 54$ Leeds & Motoaefc BiJtfng Society 134% Parra Mt B ea rin g She Cl OOP '- C137 4 Lehman Bros Portugal Growth Fd Ld Ptg Rad Prf KL01 (Br) - S&4 P1T*£6) LewtgportDPErtnertrtp PLC S% CUn W Sik £1 -SSB24095) Lot Service RC 84% Cun Prf £1 - 59 UBu* Co PLC 6% PrfiCumKI - 54 (22N095) Loratto PLC ADR 0:11 - *23 Loohus RC 8% Cm Cun Rad Cl -85 iue>c RC 94% 1st Mtg Deb sa 97/2002 - £1024 (ZINaBS) MBC PLC 12% la Mtg Dab Stk 2017 - £132 (Z2N09S) MSC RC 8% Uns Ln Stk 2DQO05 - C98 9 (Wurflt) MBC RC 104% Uns Ln Sik 2032 - £1134 55C17N095) McCutny 8 Stona PlC 9.76% Cun Red M 2IXB £1 -86 74 MdCarmy 5 Stem PLC 7% Cnv Uns 13 Stk 99/04 • £72(17No65) McMemay Rdpertea PLC *A* CM bBh.10 • SOJMZS t Secutttes RC Cap 20p - 124 Mtaacca Fuid (Cayman) Ld Pig Sts 8031 - $134 (21N09S) Mratpan BOo Bronze Hidgs PLC 84% Cum Prf El -B2(17No9fi) Marts 6 Spencer PLC ADR (Bel ] -$4i^ CON09S) ManhriTs LMveraU PlC 74% Cun Rad Prf £1-91 (20NO95) Medem PLC ADR (4.1) - $164 4 37444 325S7S eavoeg Mersey Docks 6 Hrabour Co 64% Ftod Dab Stk 9W7 -£97 (177*051 McSand Bank PLC 14% Subord Una Ln 9k 2002/07 - £1294 (20Na05) Morgan Sndal PLC 5325% Cm Cum Rad Prf £1 - 684 f(7No85) Maun Cheriatte toveetments PLC 104% let Mtg Deb Sta 2014 - £115 W=C PLC 74% Cnv Bda 2007«Red - £91 1 NodonaJ Wtatoitostar Bar* PLC 9% Non- Cum atg Prl Bus 'A* £1 - 1124 4 3 Nadunl WeetmMner Baric PLC 124% Subord Urn LnStk 2004 -£125,1 4 (17N085) Newcaade BuMng SooWy 124% Pwm knarast Bearing Shs £1000 - £1334 P0NO8S) NewtoaChambera & Co Ld 33% (Frrty &%) 1st Cum Prf £1 -59 Norfhchart tramstmenta Ld R 0.10 - £022 (2ZN0S6) Northern Foods PLC 64% Cm Sutxxd Boa 2008 (Reg)- £854 -79 8 Northam Foods PLC 64% Cm Subord Bda 2008 (Br £ Vari - £84 844 C0NO961 Northern RodrBtAUng Society 124% tam M Baaing She E1000 - £13346 44+ OrhtaPLCOrdlOp-27 831 Crfx totamadonal Growth Find Ld Ord 50p - 105 (20NO86) P 8 O Property Ho/dtogs Ld 74% lUMtg Deb ak 97/2002 -£96piNa95) P & O Property Hotokns Ld 8% Una Ln Stk 87/99- £96 Pacrtc Gas & BecBIc Co 8m of Com Stk SB -$284^0No9S) Parther SectattleB RC Wtatoaub IdrOrd - S(17No95) FWktand Group RC Ord 25p- 160 4 Patareon Zbdtorfa PLC 10% Cum Prf £1 - 116 Reason PLC 13325% Uns Ln Stk 2007 - £1364 (17N085) Peel rtdpt PLC 9%% 1st Mtg Dab Stk 2011 - £105{21No85) Peel Hdga RC 525% (Net) Gnv Cum Noo- Vlg Rf £1 • 119 (21No86) Porfdna Foods PLC 8p(Na4 Cam Cm Red Prf 100-824 PeMlna SA Ord Shs NPV (Br n Denom 1^ 6 Id) - BFB8273 45303333 941 Pttrts PLC 94% Cum Prf £1 -68£2Noeq Ftensson 8 Genani to»RC04% CUn Rod PW £1 -90 (1774095) Rottohand {GPJ Cold Sm 8035 (Hong KPng RegtatawO - SH23B4338 P2No9^ RjrtanwutfiSSuidertcrdNewspa- pesPLCi 1J% 2nd Cun Prf n - 13D (21NCSS) Rortugasa toveamani Puto Ld Ord SQ31 (Brt -$58 RMaetara n at RtoMum Ld OTO B0JB5 - 355* Powel Duffryn PLC *4% Cum Prf 5Qp - Z34 Oubbb Moa Houses PLC 12% IstMtg Deb Stk 2D13 - £334 (22N09S) Queem Meat Houses PLC h>4% 1st Mg Dab Stk 2020 - £854 (2Zhto9$ FLEArtdBS PLC 9% CUn Prl £1 - 84 eiN09Sj RPH Ld 23% IFmiy 4%) Cum Prf £1 - <2 P0No9S) RR1 13 53% IFtWy 8%) Gun Prl £1 -78 (20NO85) RRf Ld 44% Uns Ln Stk 2Q04AB - £45 P1NC85) RPH Ld 9% Ura Ut Sta 99QOK - £103 RTZ Oupcratxxi RC 33% *B* Cum Rf PI (Retf - 55 (2274095) Racd Bectronks PLC ADR pn) - 8838 39 C22Nce$ Rarft Organtaadon PLC ADR (Ert) - 6122 (21(4006) RaekMi Caiman RCS% Cun Prf £1 -55 P1NO05) Reed Mamatlontd PIC 43% (Frrty 7%) Cun PrtCI -71 (22N00q Ranotd PIC 74% atf Deb Sdc 92«7 - £99 emioes) Rofl»noyce P ow ar rn grto att g RC 11% Cum MCI -132 Roman PLC Ord 5p - S3 6 C22NaBS) Royal Bank of Scotland Gnxto PLC 54% CUTl Prf £1 - 72{20Ncfi5) Ftoyal Bar* of Sated Group PLC 11% Cum Prf Cl - 108 £0NcB5) Royro tosusnee Holtonga PLC 74% Cm SuboTO Bda 2007 03r C Vta) - C1314 24 Ftugby Grotto PLC B% Una LnStk 93A8- £B44(21Noaq SCBcorp She tt Com Stk of NPV - S17 czatoas) ) RC 8% Md Una Ln Stk - Snritt (WUL) Gmtto RC 54% Rad Um Ln Stt - CBS piN0B5) SmWVOtte Beeeham PLC ADR On) - $5331 OB ti Z 8m$W(8ne Baec tum PLC/arehKtee ADR ®rtI-SSS4 4%^»{ZZf*fiS ■ SrrxxSXJefrarsonlGmto PLC 6% Cum Prf . K1 - eOSI P2N095) Stuidard Chsnarad PLC 124% Subord Urn Ln Stk 20021*17- £1224 Starttg Mdustrtas PLC lot Prqs4% Cui^Cl -54 £1No95) Symonds Btgtnaartng RC Otd 6p - 40 4 i4 24 9 TWC (MdoBrt Ld 335% Mdaa-UnM 8tk 2020133390%) - £128 P0No95) TSB Group PLC 104% Subord In Stk 2008 - £119 TT&tMaPuC 10375% Cnv Cun Red Prf Shs El 1897 - 300$ Talpd Fund UnBa (BR to Br) - STttDO aONoS5) Tata A Lyle PLC ADR (4.-1) - $274* Tate & Lyle RC 64%f43B% gtua tax uad- SJCumPrfCI -70C2NoBa Taytor WDoUtra PLC 94% 1st Mtg Oeb Stk 2014- 00935 eONoe^ Tteco PLC ADR (1:1) - 5426 Tosco PIC 4% Una Deep Dbc in 8tk 2008 - £704 TW Prime Fuid Id Ptg RedRl $031 - *163 Thaland Remtotonta Puid Id P« Shs *031 PORTS to Bi) - *29750 (20!to8a THORN BR RC ADR (1 -T) • *23% 4 BSKtaSq Tootst Onto PIC 4%% Pup Dab Stt - £48 (17N096) Total Systand PLC OTO 5p - 20 (2lNo9Q Town Centra SecuteRC 104% 1st Mg OW3 Stk 2021 - £114341 pa3NcS5) TraMger House PLC 5u57S% CUn M £f - 45 B0Na95) r Hoaas RC 7% Um Dab Stk Cl - SUX4 PLC 84% Cun Red Prf 2001 Cl - 1004 Schol RC 54% Cm Cun Rad Pit 2006/11 £1 - 90 90P2NO95) SctnxMra PLC 64% Una Ln Stk 97/2002 - £102 (21NoSQ Scottsn Matmottan Property RC 104% 1st Mto Dab Stk 2016 - £1114 Sco»rfi& Newcastle PLC 6425% CUn Prf . £1 - BB4 (22N095) SoonUt & Newcastle PLC 7% Cnv Cun Rrf £1 -278 Sears PIC 43% Ftrriy 7%) 'A* Cun PH £1 - 72 Sous PLC 8J5% fftody 124%) Cun Pri £1 - 105(20No95) Shal Trs n aportSTradMgCo RC OTO 2Sp (BXCpn 188) - 795 Shef 'nansportATminfCo PLC 54% 1** PrUCunJTI - 64 (ITNoBS) 5Heta Grtxto PLC Ord 5p - 5<^ - Staprfte Onup PIC Ord 6p - 64 74 snapriia FMmca (UK) PIC 7375p(HeQ Cun Red Prf Shs 2009 - 6B CM N066) SMgar & Frtadtandar Grotto PLC 83% On S uboTO Uns Ln S* 2008/14 - £135 600 Onto RC 11% Ura Lit Stk 82/97 - 094 piNces) toitoUn Bifidtog Society 12%% Perm Mt Bearing She £1000 - E1344 4 TksRSgw House PLC 94% Urn LnStk 2000/ 06 - £68$ Trtoatger House PIC 104% Uns Ln Stk 2001/06 - £77 CQN093 TITOtoTO Perk Estates PLC 114% IstMlg Drt> Stk 2007/10 • £1184 (21N095) Tranagflentt c Hoktngs PICA Cm PrffiOp - £33* TVamtaxtlc Hatdnga RC B 8% Crtvftf £1 -855 Trvaport Davetopmam Grtaxt PUC 94% Ura LnStk 96/2000 -£9Q4 (20No96) (Mgrae PLC ADR (in) - $83 (22No05) Urtgata FLC 6% Una Ln 9Bt B1TO6 - £96 (22fto9^ Urtgoa PlC 64% Urn lit Stk 0M96 - £99 Unlever PLC ADR (4:1) - *783 £34095) Uraaya Corp Com Stk 8031 -Sto« (21 Nosq Urttad Ptentatkxw Africa Ld OTO R030 - COi W) UiBty Cable RC Warrants to aub for OTO -8 (2M95) vaux Groi« RC 64% A Cum Prf £1 - 7D <22NoB9 Vauc Grotto PLC 9375% Oeb Slk 2015 - £112 (17N09S) Van Gram PIC 114% dm Stk 2010 - £1284(17Tto^ ... VOdatooe Group PIC ADRCIOrf) - £21.7001 $ 38383 306475 312725 4 % M 55 35 3 5 32 % % 35 39 .7 4 4 .78 3 % 3 35 5- tocagan todustital Mdgs PIC 736p (NaQ On P ig Prf IQp - 128 9 30 Watiug (S.&) Onto PLC 7%% Cum Prf £1 -984 Watmoughe(«dgs> PLC 84% Cun Red PH 2008 £1 - 106 (TlNoBS) - . Wate Fargo 6 Compaoy She of Com Sdt $5 - $21333# WSatiand Group PLC 12%% Dab Stk 2008 - £1264 4C1N095) WhttxeadPLC44%atdCUnPrfStk£l - 54# Whhbraad PLC 6% 3rd Cum Prf Stk n - WMUned PIC *>2% Rad Deb S» SU3COa - WMrHrin^iK IwLn Stk BSS8 - pool, ClNflOS • WMtaaaa PIC 74% Ura Ln Stk 9S I 2D00 - 104% Cum M Cl - 129 WKs^rouiGnkto R- c adR 15:1 * ' * 101 * Centros PU: 6j5*Wrf) Cm* Sim Red Prf £1 • 177*2 9 Xerox CWp Ccxn Stk $1 - $1383Kp2NtCS) York Wataraorlcs RC Ord 10p-30U (17N095) , Yorfuftre-Tyrte Tees tv Hdgo PLC WO » sub to Ord - 412 Youraft art Brewery PLC 0% Cun PH £1 • VMeONoSS) 2ambitt ConaoddaiBd Osoper k»«s Ldre OTO Kio - fflpw Investment Trusts Mow 1*931 PLC *4% Prf S* " C45 (2lNd95 ftonnrr mat RC 44% D°° 81k Red after 15®W - £48 g2f**5) BZW Btdovrmert Fund Ld Radeomatao Ora auwn GKtord Japrai Tnct PIC WO to Sito Ortf she -4 BaBe GBford Shin rftipon PIC Wttrnxra to aub for ora - 73 Baton ttSaTO snin TOppon PLCWanants to sub tor CM 2005 - 50 • Bartres Mveamwtt That PIC 104% tfob Stk 2016 - £1 18 SONUS) BwMgTitouw ttvestmant Trust PIC84% Deb Stk 2012 -H04 (17No85j BrftkM into Trust PLC *A* 5% Prf Sll«3uml - ESI 2 P1N096) « Brittah Aaae» Treat PLC EqUtto Mdex U3 2005 top > 176 Briteh Emptoi Sac & General Trust 104% Deb SBc 2011 -£114<22NoB5) Capital Oeatato Trust PLC OTO 2Sp- 532 . (22N095) Danaetoveetmant Treat RC Wts 10 5U>_ scribe tar 1 KM Cap - 48*2 P 0No95 ' Etonbuqfo'Mveatment Treat PLC 165% Cun PB Stk - SS4 (17No(B) Sefinbugh Mveetment Treat PLC 34% Dab SBk 1098 - E89 (17NU>5) Etarttxgh Invoatmcrt Treat RC 11*2% Deb Stk 2014 - £1284 (22N085) EngWi 6 Scottah Imeatora PLC ’B* 2Sp - 144 (22N095) Fidatty European Vefoea PLC Equxy L»*ed Ura LnStk 2001 -157 (Z1Na95) Ftoabuy SmaOer CoT: Trust PIC Zero Dtv Prf 26P-211 422 Gortmara Brttdi toe & Grth Tst PICZero Dhri- dendPrf lOp - 133 5 Gartmora Stared E* E Asia HS2633612B3.il) BuMt Sembavrang £123(17.11) Chut** Rea AS0368p7.il] Oty Dm SS83643.152481i3JSC23.il) Dtotop Sun Man VB843396373^1.11) Grerarrale Mng(A$0-0S) AS0.101 (21.11) Hartaxl (John H) *203(22.11) Kuda SUm Rub £1.1.13(21.111 KuBm Matey OTO 54(23.11) KiAm OTO (Matey Rtf RM3.12tfO.1i) A McCarthy Grp EL25tf2.il) “ NtagW Wrung Ei.07tf2.ii) Oesearoh 47(23.11) Regd HU Htdgs HS1 -575tfO.il] Robtnaon&OoSSS3p7.ll) Sapprtra Mines 63.73(23.11) Sunonratta Bee S203382Stf2.1 1) UBt O-seea Lnd S5.6239tf2.il) Vafiant Consd 1 1(23.11) ay PMriMan of Me Stock &cftenga CMneS (0 I ieo^ e S 4cfujr-.es , i: . ‘in,., ■*} , SPOT 1HE REFUGEE There he is. Fourth row, second from the left The one with the moustache. Obvious really. Maybe not The unsavoury-looking character you’re looking at is more likely to be your average neighbour- hood slob with a grubby vest and a weekend’s stubble on his chin. And the real refugee could just as easily be the deaihcut Mow on his left. You see, refugees are just like you and me. Except for one thing. Everything they once had has been left behind Home, family, possessions, all gone. They have nothing. And nothing is all they'll ever have unless we all extend a helping hand We know you can't give them back the things that others have taken away. United Nations High CmmniaBin nw far Rpfn gpoc We’re not even asking for money (though every cent certainly helps) . But we are asking that you keep an open mind And a smile of welcome. It may not seem much. But to a refugee it can mean everything. UNHCR is a strictly humanitarian organization funded only by voluntary contributions. Currently it is responsible for more than 19 million refugees around the world. UNHCR PubBc Information P.O.Box 2500 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland Orv. V. !, * 4 *^*i* to* INT f'T* r FINANCIAL TIMES WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25/NOVEMBER 26 1995 1 LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE 1 1 MABKCr Ta REPORT keo ver cno/^i iinti/xr. i kwel FT-SE- A AB-Sbaro Index Equity shares traded _ ■ m B Tumowerby volume (mHon), Lxducfe/g: .tes^^re^^ Law ■ ■ Rte 4 #el 1,780 ^ - ■■ ■■ - — — Wra-nteat ftuateaa and owraaas tianover By PIUUp Coggan, Markets Editor Shares in London ended a volatile week on a positive note, with a °L b * d stories allowing the PT-SE 100 index to regain some of the ground lost on Thursday. By the close. Footsie was 21.5 points ahead at 3£24.o, while the Mid-250 index finished 8.8 points higher at 3.&2.S. Both indices made progr^s in spite of the brake applied by continuing declines in the power generators and distribu- tors, after the surprise bid referrals announced on Thursday. Keeping the speculative pot boil- ing, Alfred McAlpine, the construc- tion company, said it had been approache d with an all-paper share oHer from rival Amec, which itself was the subject of a dawn raid from Norwegian group Kvaerner on Thursday. Rumours swirled around Asda which had been the second busiest stock option in Thursday’s trading, and saw heavy optical and share trading: As if to emphasise the over- excited nature of the market, there was also a rumour about a bid for Standard Chartered from CS Hold- ing, a story denied by the Swiss bank. Takeover speculation has been a driving force behind the rnarW all year and Mr Tim Brown, UK market strategist at UBS, said “you will get a continuation of bid rumours. There is near-certainty that a change of gov e rn m ent will lead to a harsher climate in terms of hid referrals. There is also strong liquidity in the corporate sector." Mr Murray Wilson. UK market strategist at NatWest Securities, said: “The bid stories make people less inclined to sell shares and investors are also taking the bad news on the economy and corporate earnings as a sign tha t the Chancel- lor can cut interest rates as well as taxes." There have been a number of profits warnings this week but Mr Corey Miller, equity strategist at SGST, says the loosening of mone- tary and fiscal policy will create a mare encouraging e n vir o n ment for the co rpor a t e sector in 1996. Hopes for lower rates across Europe, with signs of a slowing economy emerging in both France and Germany this week, gave a lift to stock markets across the Conti- nent yesterday. Footsie opened 6.8 points hi gher at 3.609.3 and bid rumours kept the pot bubbling in the mprwng , allow- ing the leading index to reach 3,627 & just before 10.30am. in the afternoon, a solid opening on Wall Street gave Footsie another lift; by the close of London trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was around 10 points Ahead Gilts were again a supportive Influence cm equities, with the yield on the benchmark 10 year issue fell- ing to a 1995 low of 7.63 per curt The yield has dropped by three- fifths of a percentage point over the last month, allowing shares to rise without sending the yield ratio into expenstve-lookhig territory. Trading volume declined sU ghfiy from the very buoyant levels recorded earlier this week, with 685.5m shares dealt by the 6pm count, just over half of which was in Footsie stocks. The value of cus- tomer business an Thursday was just under £L9hn, after £2bn plus days on Tuesday and Wednesday. 1.760 .1,740 1.720 Sep Oct Nov Sep Oct Nov SotsoK FTEXBL ' 1995 1985 bidteas and rattos FT-SE lOO Indax FT-SE Mid 250 3042.8 +A8 1 Closing Index lor Nov 24 ....3624.0 FT-SE-A 350 1797.5 +9.2 Change over week +14.8 FT-SE-A AB-Share 1772.82 +3.44 Nov 23 — 3602.5 FT-SE-A AD-Shar© yield 3.81 (333J Nov 22 - ....3632.4 FT Ortfinary index 2654.8 +15.6 Nov 21 ....3604.1 FT-SE-A Non Fins p/e 18^6 (16.47) Nov 20 - ....3626.8 FT-SE 100 Fut Dac 3627.0 +17.0 1 High' ....3639.5 10 yr GBt yield 7.63 (7.66) 1 Low* ....3600.1 Long gltt/aqutty yid ratio: 2.08 (2.07) 1 1 intra-day high and low tor week TRADING VOLUME IN MAJOR STOCKS ■■■■ Vel ooo. Ctoelng pte mmmm ■ vpv ms Ctoetna JSSSL » ASOAOnwot mm tononrar MMRHsher MleP Doneoqr tetan Water Aigos kgirthwl fataveoglMT Aeeec. B* Foeosr Amc. EM. Ante BAAf BATMto-t BET 564 43500 ssxo 1M0 07 147 ESS 2400 »mn 358 6*3 1400 3j4D0 S3S 435 ItBH 608 52 *82 STB E72li 2B2v» IBB 704 282 *86 5a iso -2 +sv» +2 *a -2 +17W +1M +S -14 -1 +7 -5 -1 tendon Beocr Umm Lucas VEPC tn MataABnencart ManuyAaeetMen ltemJ» Beat Mwrteon IWroj l*WulBe*t teteAmaT Matt North Meet VWcert 2500 5.700 2.700 SB MOO 0500 87B *200 823 Z.700 3400 6200 1200 732 BOB in 183V4 301 IBS 453 881 B33 142 1£S 874 484 45B 603 *7 -6H -1 +2 +6 *18 >2 -1 -3 -14 +14 BOCt -4 BPt BPS Mb. BSkySt 883 1500 505» 310 398 •2Vi +1 *5 Paaraont P4 Of rtodugiun 1500 *500 B43 486 +2 360b ♦5» *500 Bank el SeodenoT 13500 1.400 272 +1» +5 PnMtrter REXAUt *500 438 +18 ac2 +10 BMCr BftMCkdet 182 688 322 +7 +4 RTZf Rum 2500 8*6 +6 383 -7 ReiOkt 2500 588 +10 Reddl 5 CotowrrT 801 BBS 7» Redbmdf 3400 3.000 7B7 +tz *2 1.400 4GB +5 2400 237 +w Reuerar 372 FteRnyrat 8500 168K +*M Ryl Bk Bcotaratt 3500 17B +1 Poyat tanrnl 1500 387 3KTavwr*i 652 088 +3 Setnetwyt 3500 378 +6H +2 *500 4S2 -1 SooCteh & Namt Cwtavy SctomppBji 1500 558 *1 Scot HyOn-Bwa. Qrednn 1.100 198 +a SeotOdi Pewarf 3500 Cwkon Coimo t 296 868 •s Seawf 7500 CrteWyelB Comm. LMonf 806 1.400 IT4W 649 +to +B SeteKk O 1 . 2,100 2500 12B 6*2 +3 -5 Cranpass c *49 662 -3 Cookaont 1200 296 -4 Bh«e Traraportt Couftoitast 1.700 304 +2 aetwt DofaMV 1500 302 -7 StoughEn D* Ln FKmT 1500 713 Sn4Hi(WJi> 2500 427 +17 Dbmns 4.700 *24 +12 Smto&Neoriewt 19S +* Emi kfafond Sea. 1500 870 +7 BrnKtaestent 969 689 *3 Bectreoamsu 513 325 •5 SmU Beocnem Uts.f 1.100 678 *7 Eng Cmra Ctty. QS3 328 -2 1500 SM EntaprtM Obi 3500 342 +3 A.nno 920 +7 Emturrel una 10S 96 •2 Soum Wdaa QecL 1.100 1027 +24 FW 1.100 164 SDuhMtasrWte 474 90015 -0ta Fonkon A Col. LT. 1.100 151 »; +V 8euSnm Wdar 44 675 -4 Fatat 2500 3J6 -5 Sanoato Ctwrtd.t *400 507 +23 Ocn Acctooott 2500 G55 -2 Skxdmae 9B4 3*0 +8 Omwnl Elocr f 3.100 318 +3 SunAfiancot 2500 393 +8 GbnamuHt 1500 880 *7 T8N 402 137 -2 GJymwO 200 318 -2 1400 437 -7 Oramtool sas 051 -a TSBt 8500 404 -6 Grand AMt l.-WO 430 +i Tarmac 1500 0115 -1« OUST 1500 600 +15 Tea, Stylet 4,100 451 +6 Giwidb 658 S2G *1 Taylor Woodrow 1500 118 +1» ORE B500 258S +8 TdeWaat 23 162 «a*i 13* B2B +1 Teecor 4200 2S8 *7 GUnnmeT 2.100 «ae -1 Ihamae Want 398 558 -fi HS8C (TSp Wqn 4.100 B52W +8-b ThomEMt 493 1539 82 337 -2 TrmkMri 1500 268 -1 Hsnmyt 10500 urn Tratdgsr Hdum 1 0jpV} 24 +1H HamsonaCIOiMd 392 1*8 +3 as- # 402 429 Hay* 127 370 +2 S4B 1223 +8 1500 18B LMfadBtote 891 200 9M *01 312 +214 URL Maa 6 M*da *48 507 -1 tat 3500 738 +7W 1*500 21 7W -5 *500 245 ♦7 WPP 758 157 JChneon Mteey 376 377 -10 16* 899 -5 WnglWwl 11.000 534 +10 WtamWMar *38 344 -lOta KwmSm 10 571 +1 079 664 +13 Uteotat 5500 1*B *10 WtawWgtt 1400 332H +2H ore SOI •2 Wtoe Cnmxm 2500 125 5* 772 wtw 477 128 +5 Ugm & GwwrWt 2.100 718 ♦12 6*8 444 +12 UoytaAMw 381 487 -3 totftriBto. 1200 2500 887 -7 B6 808 -7 LASMOT 1,*00 -•158 adnata -1 teal 96* «■ amore ia KM ndmiitofadsr ■ 1282 -«•> -8" L« EQUITY FUTURES AND OPTIONS TRADING It was another day of high drama in traded options, with bid stones abounding and volume in Asda topping 10,000 tots, writes Jeffrey Brown. Dealers said the Asda turnover was fuelled exclusively by takeover hopes, with the April calls heavily in demand. Asda accounted for more than 40 per cent of the day’s total traded options volume of 23,792 lots. Forte was again actively dealt and so was Standard Chartered. Turnover in stock index futures stayed tow, with the FT-SE 100 December contract improving to 3,627 at the dose of pit trading, up 17 points. Volume was 6,000 lots. The premium to the cash market at the dose was four, or ax points under fair value estimates. In the run up to the UK budget and with Wall Street out of action for Thanksgiving on TTussday. It has been a low-key week. Over the five trading days. December staged a net gain of four points. -4 ■ FT- 8 E 100 8 C 6 X FUTURES (UFFQE25 per 1 u 8 index port (APT) Open Sett price Change Hgft Low 1 Eat. uol Open tot- Dec 38235 3627J +17.0 3642-0 361E0 6311 84616 Mar 384&0 3661 £ +17.5 3845.0 3844^ 1207 9555 Jun - 36575 +175 ■ fT-SEftOD 260 BBEX FUTURES (UPFq CIO per tul Max poM 0 134 Dec _ 3955 i) +00 _ _ 0 ram Mar - 40000 +5.0 - - 0 300 ■ FT-SE 100 IMPEX OPTION (UFFQ (*3888) CIO per fcil tndttt point 3400 3600 3550 3600 3850 3700 3750 3800 CPCPCPCPCPCPCPCP Dec 164 6*2 138b 9b 96 17b 681 2 33 30b 57b IS 95 Sb 143 1b 1® An 202b ZD 192 30 12Sb « 94 Bib « W C U3 Z7 150b t5b 1»b Feb 222 28 135 40 148b 54 118b 74 90 97b 67b 125b 49 160b34b 200 Ifcr 246b 43b 201 5*b1»b 70 134 88 b 106 111 83 139 B2b 170 46 208b Jmt 242 95b 177b 129 127 17B 86 238 CMk 955 ftri 1,226 ■ EURO STYLE FT-SE 100 INDEX OPTION (U ffEJ £10 per M Wen port 3675 3725 3775 3825 21 60' 9*2 107 3b 150b 1 IBB S3 92b 3« 122b2Bbl5Bb t 2 198 79 105 59b 134b «3b 168 31 205 89 141 38 2D7b ITSblSOb 75b 237b 3475 3525 3675 3825 Dac 150b 7b 113 13b 75 23b 42b 40b A) 183 24 143b 34b 167b 48 77b 57b Fab 28812 30 164 42b 131b SO 103 80 Uar 181 57 117 91 Jorrf 224 97 16512134b m 723 Fte B32 • UnbarWv Me* rts. Pmsn ■ log AM npby mfis Penn band on m t tmvt prices. FT-SE-A INDICES - LEADERS & LAGGARDS Fmontma changes shea December X 1994 based an Frid^ Nawte 24 1995 — +57.55 Entfu a ari nB. Vettiflw — +18X7 Btedqr . _ +50.15 M,KBgted +1665 .44130 FT-SE-A At- Store +1652 UBtaHIBCS . H^|MI lem-sc-raot -+33J4 — +38.11 +2532 DbubIm-— _+25J9 imto -+2520 IftnlHM -+2DJ2 28 man. fewai — FT-SE-A 350 Lotar Yld FT-SE 100 FT-SE-A SO +19.76 1+1U1 -.*1022 _+1633 sente. . +16.17 Ited EflteB +M.93 ■e indices Dior* Nor 24 av M Mw 23 Nw 22 MW 21 0k Mai 7*f* ter M xaa* ToM raflo jtt Man MU 250 +1250 +2052 FT-SE SmCvn ITS -+125B Tawport BEOrietty— Food Rnducot _+7.79 _+7.79 AMn Fend _+7*6 6ee totem* _+&0Q DuHg* Caatruefloo . Owfctt Ttemsteteora -*233 -*222 — +150 ffl Btesflon 4 Prad _ _+1^Z -+1.M SpfctL Moa C ate _ OhfenSed Icdutet OWltMKRI ---- — +058 _40J8 _+03( — +0.13 adding tub _+1 078 son 225338 4064 9M30 29666 4/10 175421 sin 222X22 4/1065 96230 10/1167 4/10 201637 23/1 29531 VI 0195 HBJO M/166 1V7 M7U5 am 314232 11/765 97330 14/166 256 138018 80 232530 2/1067 ■030 2VM0 30 cawwEt were» 31 BWMiMtIT) 32 Spte. Woes 0 CManJ* 33 Food PnCMwC4) 34 MuWMd (30009(111 36 HaatoCnon 37 namawuOcaMiai 38 ToMcann 353936 276081 2757.63 249251 2582B8 195966 487135 480753 +05 ♦ 1.1 +Ot *1.3 +03 +05 -15 353013 274000 275558 2492.41 2548.82 195358 *948.13 485351 Z7S553 271074 2491.41 255759 195073 480658 490454 853956 273457 279*52 348292 282150 1846.00 430854 478655 271842 218355 271151 225153 230154 1588.08 301852 350 1J79 185712455 128054 388958 2X1 274358 353 155 1750 0842 128753 278851 24711 454 153 1755107.13 96070 298S3B 16710 458 155 18.79 9200 110152 258050 778 2249.13 3J0 2.13 1554 9055 96951 274150 88 236757 256 151 2554 48.10 117559 283757 STM 331 1.70 22.1418251 160154 5 M B 3 2 2X1 459 154 125022953 118351 400454 22711 344KJ1 2 W 368658 2X155 an zmtun ztm/as 973 348750 11/SB2 2371 260054 180794 471 289454 18094 2371 204750 2BWB7 571 B0M32 2071-MS 7/3 400454 2271 MB 8E7JD UO/86 ■280 WUK 81750 1471/86 946.10 1471/88 627.10 21/1/86 07258 2171/86 1371/86 40 8EWCESP2*} 41 DafttfauntiOOl V unuD a Hatedn 43 III itallT) 44 Mate. KottiQ *5 RMB X&m+M 48 Swoon SemewOT gk TmoortCa "si 0 HR Sente A Bus 219651 2502.19 2572 08 351859 189785 189522 184750 =20838 115066 +15 +05 «Q1 + 0.6 ♦ 2.1 +19 -02 +06 + 0.1 217857 348841 256840 3496.78 109871 186053 1852.10 218150 1149.43 217757 254357 2568.42 346.73 1BS057 1853.40 1870.78 219448 116145 21 8548 257353 250423 349827 1868.43 1B42J5 1658.13 218857 I1GT25 189825 251844 208151 264256 174352 158859 150750 224558 100.12 338 2 11 1035 6438 112807 2030 66 181249 913 223K43 9666 94420 23/168 431 1J7 1737 94.66 90317 08X00 156 221984 2772 331933 2064 ■89 21/1/96 310 13* 2041 7367 131730 257239 24/11 203371 23/1 257269 24/1165 97540 21/1/96 238 238 2536 7836 125316 352148 aom 282837 23 n 3S145 20/1165 97820 8/166 332 240 1353 6337 11B43B 22S3M 46 172849 5 n 22SS44 4695 91740 21/166 318 227 1732 87.78 106734 18B522 aim 149449 21/2 183424 29/1263 87870 912/88 250 232 1090 4158 116098 18M23 156 142033 70 198823 15665 81820 1/261 335 130 2431 8639 90639 23B24S 28/7 2101-95 130 280521 3064 98820 M/166 455 Ml 1045 4310 103438 127343 1545 114880 Wll 2*5830 16/767 903.10 M/166 co mnmw C ftetWlS) 84 GM OarAatDDO IB TteBnflteClMnfl 2488.70 248258 288154 288352 1563.78 158295 2018.75 200855 212B56 2067.73 1251 10472 100528 384454 105814357 123057 29056 15.7811952 7057 206B2B 1656 51.48 6B7.1S 223441 8.75 3752 1133.45 715146 8 K 218251 10/11 2B7758 30 1S1TJ2 4/9 188452 5710 108758 M3 278253 2OT4 31/3 281956 IQni/BS 701 237B50 1602/33 03 248120 29/124G 3/2 =15346 jnOW TT-Sfl n-st-A nu^g «* ** ■ Hear ty rr-sE too ft sc kM no Qp*° 3608.3 3S355 1791.1 950 1050 1150 1200 1350 1450 *550 76.10 High Mar UgjjjF 36114 WT* 3938.0 , 1J V2* 17850 FT.*** 3» Twawn^J ruOHVl 1 hM |r«ta ■ FT-SE "t? aogiCtecn FXMlBliKh WUar 8««,/teW 3824.1 39434 1797.8 36225 3?«2 1787.1 36225 3845.1 1797-1 362*2 3845.1 17975 36343 38443 17975 36225 39435 17872 3827.9 38453 1799.0 36093 38352 1781.1 1150 1260 T3J30 74J» 13JX) 16.10 Chan TVewouj Change 968.1 968.1 B87.1 9663 98A5 8893 - 8813 +7.7 4930.7 -4338.8 483&S 49342 491ft8 4917 2 4S92.1 +25.1 2128J 21284 21284 21 1t3 21162 21153 21343 -18l2 *085-0 40624 40852 ffi 4 *0353 BW 40983 40753 +233 Base Baaa ata vatoa Etety eacrion or tr 3 ' race* Ptan-Rw*™ swiawiooaoo FT-SE-A Ftadgka 30/12/94 100000 FT-StA MM Tool Rd JW2W 100050 10W62 10050 FT-S6-A M|9q R BM IMX 30/12/8* lOOOLOO FT-SE-A EWb a IT TtOi M 30/12/9* 100050 10/wez 1«U» FT-SE 1Uai MM Mces +mnm gi:i=5fi jLirw 68=54 08=94 ,n-ut 31/12/82 100050 31/12/83 100050 .-nr- SV12/B5 100050 FT-SE-A Sactal* TcM RS ,uww+» .. . A»08* f _ - . h ,- # i J pnawaBlS(Etewv«*iidlha1T-8EMtea/MtetateMd»aFr«ESoMCaptatea»coiiteabr'nw ***». J Mnl rt ‘ 18ra ,- C«4 <■*+*. Vm Oman: m rorr — 0+.-*** «• Takeover buzz for Asda Heavy dealing in the traded options sector triggered bid fever in Asda Group, sending shares in the company gn| i fha sector sharply forward in hafty volume. By the close of trading, some 10,213 contracts had been dealt in Asda stock options, the equivalent of more than iftm ordinary shares. The April UQp calls wore said to have been particularly busy and the Jan- uary lOOp and 110p calls were aisn in demand. In the cash market, the stock surged 5 V* a head to l03Vip, on turnover of aim, its hf ghogf daily total for more than two years. Several names were attached to the bid talk, a list that included retailer Boots, food manufacturing group Associ- ated British FOods and Asda rival Argyfl. However, analysts remained sceptical about a bid for one of the US’s biggest food retailers and one said: “It would be a difficult acquisition for Boots. I would put it down to a recov- ery in the stock. After all, this is a sector that has underper- formed the market by 18 per cent over the last three months." Shares in Boots closed 10 ahead at 588p, while ABF Ml 14 to 70^) in thin trading. Asda speculation boosted trading in the rest of the leading stocks in the sector. Argyll put an 1% to 292'Ap, while J Sainsbury gained 5% to 376p, as talk cir- culated that it may be looking to buy Giant Food, the US group in which it already has a stake. Tesco was also in demand and its shares rose 7 to 28Sp. Bank bid talk Bid speculation returned to banking group Standard Char- tered, which saw the shares race 23 ahead to 587p. Volume was 4.4m. The market rumour mill suggested CS Holding was looking to make an offer for the UK group but the Swiss bank denied it One market specialist said: “Standard’s network in the East can net be easily reph- NEW HIGHS AND LOWS FOR 1995 coo- m BAMS, RETML 0) StULOMa A CNSTRN M BLD6 MKIU A MCHTS » Ktngmn. IOyw ML CHS4KMS |Q As Oariay. OBTRBUTORB 18 Fte. BMIiaCITY (8 Sean FCte. OECT1WC A ELECT EOUFff AngiMBfc A. Bu^m. Drucfc. imiluli. Unn PrirtnpTachB. nniiiB i HiMim 1 1 mm nil mini m FOOD PRODUCStS (1) Sate @CL HEALTH CARE (I) Qnmm MSURAMCS » QfiE. Sfevco, MVBnMBfr-muns tm tasune A HOTELS (f) CmpM. UK ABSURAMC& C8 LegH A State. ftudMM. UW RHw*y a MED* fl| Anooo. on Omari fcto. ted ML Q*. EXPLORATION A PROD |Q Pta Bscfc. OA. MRB9RJRED (t) SM TVar* 7pe M, OTHER nNANOIM. (S Ctetata Mm. Atatate. OTHER SERVS A BU8NS m era ER3. PAna , MCKO A Fiona tl) 81 hta. PHAHMA Ce UnCAtS a O te ch . San. PRDPHITT CQ M»W RETAIBW. OB«AL M AigOA. Btek SteB. 0F8 Ftete. Ota»r». O ta w , OaktanWn . /taitayA Kkigteer. itata A Spmer. Mbs. Onto Sms. mnoi State** 8PEBTS, «n«s a cs»s ( tl Stagnm. support SERVE n Conte. Lyra. Prty. Sana. VMbcl TEmus A APPAREL (4 njmnnli TffiTtn— HdOn Petmotf. TRANSPORT (S A«r London. On BogacoKh. WKIBt m AM M Fhtate PUMM, Mate Him RT*. 4AW85AH6 (l| CANADIANS (4. new lows m. OA.TS n BAMCS. REIAL (Q BULOBiO A CNSIRN (I) StarW. CHMCAU A BAMi Wb. Hotew CtafteL UTM DOnOBUTORE R Pwra HMh— . WM lW . D WOIIBnki> MPLS (i) Hvaoa uctrnc a aacr BDUP M Oaraho ftM Set fiaoMan* 7«ch BOMBRNG 0 AS W. BrilML EXTRACTIVE BOW n Mteg. FOOD PRODUCBS (Q Skn*. HEALTH CARE (1) Bkmca ML 0) PI ■n un MEW TRUSTS « OA. EXPLDRXnOM i m~r m~ii»i iiftem nn nn. nrm niCNB A PWIB (1) 8tev. PHOPSITY » ARad London, CtaayML lAMrSaa, RETALBtt, OBCRAL (1) Ctwcri. SUPPCnr SOWS (I) Mmribt PvtnaaHp, TRAH8PORT n TteC A Btttan. Ugtand ML WMi Kmg. cated so 1 can see the merits of such a deal, but any buyer would have to pay a hell of a price." Another analyst attributed yesterday's rise in the stock to favourable Ren Hwimi t following a City presentation earlier this week, a squeeze in the stock, and buying in case of a bid. Elsewhere in the sector. Royal Bank of Scotland, often mentioned as a bid target, advanced 9J4 to 540p. It reports on Thursday. The spotlight remained reso- lutely trained on the building sector yesterday as investors and analysts speculated on the likely outcome of the Amec, Alfred McAlpine and Kvaerner takeover triangle. McAlpine jumped 18 to 159p following an all-share offer from Amec worth 192p, with Amec shares closing off 3 at 96p. And a number of other construction leaders got nau g ht ijp in the general take- over excitement. Wfcmpey added 5 to 128p and JXaing put 0& 6 to 247p. Most analysts felt that Kvaerner held the key to the tangled situation. It was said to be keen on Amec's deep-sea exploration technology and the betting yesterday was that the Norwegian shipbuilding and energy group would push ahead with an outright bid. This looked to put a ceiling of lOOp on Amec - the price at which Kvaerner carried out its “dawn raid" on Thursday - and suggested that the upswing at McAlpine had been overdone. “McAlpine looks the most likely loser in all this", said one top construction analyst yesterday. He added that tire sector could also stand to lose same of its recent gloss should a Kvaerner bid for Amec prove successful “Kvaerner wants the deep-sea operations not the construction side. As a result, the Amec building operations could soon be up for sale". Off a penny at one stage, Hanson closed all-square at 190%p, as nervousness contin- ued to dog the shares ahead of next week's full year results from the international con- glomerate. A two-way pull in the stock pushed turnover up to 10m as stories of possible profit down- grades circulated. Hanson is widely expected to hit analysts’ targets for 1994-95 but some brokers have deep reservations about current year trends. Polyethylene prices in the US, which are cr ucial to the performance at Q uantum , the group's fastest growing profits centre, have fallen by 10 per cent since the summer and continue to soften. The shares, which stood at 243%p earlier this year, are nestling up against a yield of 8 per cent, erne of the highest returns in the Footsie. Most analysts expect the dividend, 3p a share for the last six quar- ters, to be maintained. Elsewhere in the sector. Powell Duffryn stayed under a cloud, retreating a further 13% to 467p for a two-day decline of 16 per cent in two days follow- ing Thursday’s shock interims. Down from 76p this year, Trafalgar House jumped 1% to 24p in 11m traded as the latest round of corporate activity in the construction sector led to talk of a possible sale of the group's bn fiding operations. Retailer Kingfisher rose 10 to ■ CHIEF PRICE CHANGES YE S TERDAY London (Fence) Ah’ London 113 + 13 Concentric 161 + 12 DFS Furniture 378 + 14 Fine An Devs 401 + 14 Geest 142 + 25 Kingfisher 534 + 10 Legal & General 718 + 12 McAlpine (A) 156 + IB Reckitt & Caiman 665 + 12 SEC Group 50 + 7 Smith (WH) 427 + 17 Standard Chartered 587 + 23 Whitbread 664 + 13 Fafis BiocompatlbiBs 465 - 14 Domino Printing 392 - 32 National Power 464 - 14 Powell Duffryn 467 - 13% PowerGen 524 - 16 Radstone Tech 33% - 6Vs 534p in heavy trading of 11m, following a favourable presen- tation. Panmure Gordon was said to have urged investors to buy the stock. Geest jumped 25 to I42p, after Irish group Fyffes emerged as a possible buyer of its banana business in partner- ship with the Windward Island Banana Development Com- pany. The decision of the trade and industry secretary to refer two bids in the electricity sector continued to cast a shadow over the sector as a whole. PowerGen, gave up 16 to 524p, while National Power fell 14 to 464p. The two stocks led the league table of the worst per- formers in the FT-SE 100. Hotels and leisure giant Lad- broke continued to recover from recent lows and gained another 10 to 14£p, to make it the day’s best performer in the Footsie. Volume was 5m. Profit-taking was reported in Forte, currently under siege from Granada Group. The for- mer eased 5 to 346p, while the latter closed 2 down at 653p. Engineering leader Rolls-Royce, which has come down from a peak of 194%p over the past three months, added 4 to lTOp in R5m traded, following buy recommenda- tions from NatWest Securities and Morgan Stanley. Ink jet printing specialist Domino Printing Sciences crashed to a new 1995 low fol- lowing the group’s second profits warning in two months. The shares tumbled almost 10 per cent, closing off 42 at 392p. Weekend Business Businesses For Salz Over the past sine months we have moved significantly away from canBo Kn g ao gfege ra to encooragmg nod serving probable winners. We are currently briefed by the CEO’s of a number of Printing and Packaging c o mp/m i e s who have almost aE now moved fresn ‘maybe, if itfe good enough’ to Yit file oar pattern, BEING 11*. Typical of these powwbititiea: B/243 London • City £5 mill inn I/O and 2600K NP8T - still expanding rapidly but could be in te rest ed in joining Listed Group who would welcome more than jnst a contribution to profit, OB at the other end of the spectrum, S /308 - a e mail Printing Company £300k T/O, profitable and baaed on OPPSHOES Thx Haven, OR 8/309 • North East England, a rapidly expanding Printer with comprehensive colour capacity. 22J> - £3 million T/O. healthy profit, well housed, weD run and robust. We NEED more c am parti ea to Bed We know WHO will boy, BOW it should be offered and WHAT price is achievable; no tipper limit in size. 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Speaking in an interview, he said that as far as Kiev was con- cerned. proposals by Russian pol- iticians to re-establish the Soviet Union "have no future”. But be cautioned that the resurgence of Russian national- ism could provoke a dangerous internal rift in Ukraine unless tentative economic reforms more swiftly delivered prosperity to Europe’s second largest country. The communist-nationalist alli- ance is expected to do well in next month’s Russian parliamen- tary elections. On the other band. Mr Kuchma also held out the hope that “an economically strong and stable Ukraine” offered Europe the best bulwark against an expansionist Russia. In contrast with Russia, which has put opposition to the east- ward expansion of Nato at the top of its foreign policy agenda, Mr Kuchma said Ukraine sup- ported the inclusion or its eastern European neighbours In the west- ern military alliance. He also said Ukraine would reftise to join a new Russian-led military bloc. On Chernobyl, Mr Kuchina threatened not to close the plant unless the west helped make up for lost electricity and guaran- teed financing to replace the crumbling sarcophagus around the fourth reactor, which blew up in 1986. Negotiations this week between Ukraine and the Group of Seven industnahsed countries foiled to reach a deal to close the plant "Each year the danger grows, the cracks in the sarcophagus widen and the ground water rises," he said. “It poses a grave danger not Just for Ukraine but for Europe and the world.” However, Mr Kuchma said: ‘'When we dose Chernobyl, we will lose huge amounts of money. If we don’t get the grants from the west, we won’t shut down the Fuji Bank takes on heavy loss to write off bad debts By Gerard Baker In Tokyo Fuji Bank, the world's third- largest commercial bank, said yesterday it would report heavy losses in the current financial year in an effort to free itself its heavy burden of bad loans. The bank expects to report its first pre-tax loss, and the largest ever by a Japanese lender, of Y-WObn (*4.4bn) for the year to next March. It will also become the first leading bank for many years to cut its dividend to share- holders. In the process it will write off mare than YBOObn in bad debts in the foil year, a move that should eliminate most of its outstanding problem loans. The announcement came as the country’s leading commercial or “city” banks declared their results for the six months to the end of September . All 11 banks reported substantial increases In operating profits as a result of big gains on bond trading, facili- tated by the authorities’ aggres- sive easing of monetary policy over the last year. Aggregate operating profits were a record YLBTObn, up by more than 70 per cent on the same period last year. For the first time the published results included estimates of restructured loans at each of the lenders. In the past, h«nirc have been required only to provide details of loans to bankrupt bor- rowers and loans with interest more than six months past due. But loans an which interest rates have been cut to keep a borrower afloat have now been included. Total non-performing loans at the 11 banks woe Yl3,656bn, or 5 per cent of their total lending. But the figure revealed widening differences between s tronger and weaker banks. Several of the larger institutions plan to write off most of their outstanding bad loans in the next six months while weaker banks could still require several years of strong profits to clear their books of bad loans. The bulk of the restructured loans are those made to the coun- try's bankrupt housing loan com- panies. The government is sched- uled to announce plans for the disposal of those lenders next month and the plans could result in banks' writing off substan- tially more of their nonperform- ing assets in the next six months. Daiwa Bank, which reported a SLlbn loss on US bond trading two months ago, recorded the highest pre-tax profits, but only at the expense of almost no reduction in its bad loans. In addition to Fuji, one other bank, Hokkaido Takushoku, the most troubled, also forecast a full year pre-tax loss of Y190bn. Sumitomo set to buy Daiwa’s US interests. Page 8 BT announces division of chairman’s dual role Continued from Page 1 “This is the best thing to have happened to BT in a long time,” one analyst said. The shares rose 5* s p to 360’ *p. He will be paid £475,000 and will be eligible for bonuses and membership of BTs long-term remuneration plan. His contract is fixed far the first three years after which it will be renewed on a one-year rolling basis. His chief value to the company is seen as his proven managerial skills coupled with a profound knowledge of computer technol- ogy. Increasingly, telecoms opera- tors will rely for profitable growth on Innovative services delivered over the “information superhighway”, high capacity telecoms lines capable of trans- mitting voice, data and moving pictures. Sir Iain, who said a second chapter was opening for BT, said yesterday that he had believed the roles of chairman and chief executive were best combined fol- lowing privatisation and the lib- eralisation of the UK telecoms market to give the company a clear focus. Over the past year it had become apparent there was advantage in splitting the roles. Mr Hepher, who had a distin- guished career in financial ser- vices before Joining BT, had decided that his long-term future Peter Bonfield: regarded as one of Britain's top managers did not lie in telecoms. He will leave with his salary of £430,000 a year paid to the end of his con- tract an August 7, 1997. Sir lain said it was not the first time he had tried to tempt Mr Bonfield to join BT. reactor in 2000. It will be 2005 or 2010 .” The Ukrainian leader also urged his Russian counterparts to follow Ukraine’s example and bold par liamentar y and presiden- tial elections according to sched- ule. Some Russian pnTIHHaina and businessmen have argued that Russia is culturally unprepared for democracy, but Mr Kuchma said th ft* Ukraine, which shares Russia's largely authoritarian history but held free elections last year, proved otherwise. “It’s not the soul of the country they’re concerned with,” Mr Kuchma said, “it’s the souls of individual politicians who worry about losing their warm seats.” In the shadow of the Russian bear, Page 2 French public sector strikers challenge PM Continued from Page 1 privileges for public sector work- ers. Yesterday's strikes, dubbed “Black Friday”, brought tens of thousands of protesters on to the streets of Paris and other cities such as Toulouse and Marseille. Only one out of six or seven trains ran on the Paris metro. Air France cancelled, more than 80 pea* cent of its European flights because erf striking air traffic con- trollers. Foreign carriers also cut their services. The opposition Socialist party and trade unions claimed a vic- tory for the fight ’against Mr Juppe's proposals, but the level of support for the strikes appeared to fall short of that on a similar day of action last month. An exception was the strike on the rail network, where workers protested against proposed pro- ductivity measures at SNCF. the lossmakmg rail company, as well as Mr JuppS’s welfare reforms. Most at SNCFs 180,000 workers supported the industrial action, crippling national rail traffic. In an attempt to ease the con- , frontation, which is expected to cause disruption through the weekend and possibly beyond, Mr Bernard Pons, the transport min- ister, softened his line on reform measures. He said in a radio interview that financial aid from the state could be made initially “without conditions”. Mr Pons has previously demanded that assistance for the indebted rail company should be tied immediately to productivity efforts. His comments yesterday appeared to indicate that the gov- ernment wants to avoid fighting on several fronts. It also faces a potentially seri- ous challenge from university students, who have launched a series of protests to back demands for improved funding and facilities. FT WEATHER GUIDE Europe today A lingering front from Scotland to the Iberian peninsula will cause cloud and ndn over Portugal, western Spam aid western France. Elsewhere on the peninsula, os well a* in France and the Benelux. It will be dry with sunny spells. Along the western coast of the British isles It wHI be cloudy end wet, Elsewhere, cloud will be inter sp er se d with a few sunny spells; a shower is possible. A strengthening low pressure system In the western Mediter ran e an will bring heavy ralrrfafl m the eastern Pyrenees and thunder showers In Sicily and Sardinia. The Balkans and Turkey wU be moMy tunny but cold because of high pressure over south seer Europe. Serbia end Romania will have patchy fog. Flve-dajr forecast Low pressure will produce alternating doud and ran hi the UK for several days. The Benelux and Germany win stay mainly dry. Cloud and heavy showers will occur In southern Europe. From Monday, eastern Spain and central France wri stay dry. South-east Europe wilt be rather sunny end dry. Further north, a frontal rone will Bngar over Russia causing doud and patchy n#n. The Ukraine will remain dry. TOMYtTUMBUTUMB A MWWA f. 4 («* 030 _ y j • -4b-jSA- OaMtoent *Wnd»p»»d InKW S&ttQfl af 12 GMT Temperature* rrwwmum tor n*y. Fortasta by Uatoo Consult of tfm Waffwtund* MbMp w— Bwpng Ur 11 Cncas shower CatSHJB Qitft lair 8 Cttttf ran AbucmatM teem son Mr 28 32 Belgrade Bartn tofl sun 5 5 Casablanca Chicago rain <* Mgtarv Mr 20 Bvmuda rain 23 Cologne sun Amsterdam fair n Bogota cloudy 20 Dakar fair Athens sun 13 Bomber sun 33 Dales HR Atlanta Ear u Brutish Mr 12 Dan sun B. A!tm fc* 25 Budapest Mr 2 Due* sun B-hsm shower 11 Cimgan dowdy 1 Dubai Mr Bangkok (a k 32 Cato cloudy 18 Dubrovnik Mr Brahma ram 18 Capa Town cloudy 20 Edinburgh dourly More nnd more experienced traveller- make or, their first choice. Lufthansa 31 Fan Mr 17 Madrid rain ID Rangoon cloudy 31 12 Ffwttsi Mr a Majorca Mr 17 Rayfcjarfc dear -2 19 Canon Mr 9 Malta cloudy IB Rio cloudy 27 8 tStnIXM rain 18 Manchaatar shower 12 Roma shower 18 10 Glasgow drzzl 11 Manna douefy 30 S. Ran Mr 18 32 Hamtarg Mr 8 Malbouma aun 23 Seoul cloudy 12 21 haUfiM Ur 4 MucoGtty cloudy 19 Singapore third 31 28 Hong Kong sun 24 Miami Mr 22 cloudy B 28 HonoUU shower 29 Mian hazy 6 Strasbourg fair 8 8 Istanbul sun B Momma! cloudy 1 Sydney sun 22 14 Mona shower 31 Moscow Blast 0 Tangier rain 17 ID Jaraay mm 13 Munich aun 3 Tel Aviv shower 16 Karachi _ Kuna sun tun 32 24 Nairobi Naptas Mr Ur 26 15 Tokyo tab- doudy 14 3 tl L Angelas sun 23 Nassau shower 2r Vancouver rdn 10 gl LaaPaSmas showor 23 Now York Mr 7 Venice Mr 8 ■ Lima Mr 23 Me* shower 14 Vtowa aun 0 M Lisbon flhowar 14 Nfcoata SIS1 14 Warsaw fair 3 ■ London shower 13 Odd tar 6 Watfwgtan Mr 7 •9 LwJxug Mr 8 Pans Mr 13 WaSrgtcm rein 18 9 L *°" ■ Madam Mr drawer 12 19 Perth Prague Mr sun 22 0 Winnipeg Zurich enow fair -7 7 7l| y THE LEX COLUMN BT’s job exchange Yesterday’s 5p rise in BTs share price is a grudging reaction to one of the moot positive events in the group’s history. The appointment of Mr Peter Bonfield as chief executive marks a farming point in BTs transition from public sector utility to competitive ser- vices group - and probably In the group’s dire share price performance too. As chairman of ICL, he is Europe's most successful computer executive. His record af boosting reve- nue, curbing costs and internationalis- ing ICL is just what BT needs. Mr Bonfield may not know much about telecoms. But. because of its monopoly past, the telecoms Industry sports few top-class executives. More- over, Mr Banfleld's experience in com- puters is increasingly relevant now that telecoms has shifted to digital technology - offering scope to enhance the range of services BT offers beyond basic voice telephony. The c u rrent management's main achie v emen t has been to akwh costs. But it has failed to boost revenue sig- ' nificantly. The company has been slow to introduce and market new ser- vices. Mr Michael Hepher, the group man- aging director who is being squeezed out to make way for Mr Bonfield. did not fulfil his hilling as a marketing man. That may be because he was swallowed by BTs bureaucracy; he also lacked freedom of manoeuvre while Sir Inin VaBance remained chief ex ec u tiv e . It is hard to imaging Mr Bonfield becoming part of the grey carpeting. In any case. Sir Iain is now surreaideriiig his chief executive role. Mr Bonfield feces multiple chal- lenges. BTs relationship with Oft el has deteriorated - culminating in the regulator’s attack this week on the company's business ethics. That said, with the relationship at such a low ebb, Mr Bonfield’s arrival could improve matters. If Oftel believes BT is becoming more dynamic, it may view It less as a monopoly utility that must be closely controlled. Another challenge will be to inten- sify competition. With rivals now established In both l ong - riiataniw and local markets - and the fntpmatfrina\ market likely to be further liberalised - BTs monopoly is being eroded. "Net- work capacity could become a low- margin, highly volatile commodity. But, here too. Mr Bonfield could help. If he pan boost value-added services, BT will he Iras vulnerable to commodi- ty-style competition. Mara immediately. Mr . Bonfield could change investor s *' perception of FT-SE Eurotrack 200: 1554.S (+5.3) PS Md OK equip** - lodtees mbaMd WO S*PC ,7 v Ivor and Susie Dunkerton fci their Hertfordshire restaurant AsNey Aatmeod being sold at the form gate - most is sold through organic food whole- salers to food halls, wine mer- chants, delicatessens and up-market retailers - that Ivor Dunkerton decided to open a local outlet for retailing draught cider. “We had very little success selling to local pubs because, in our naiv- ety, we had not realised that most free houses have some sort of tie-up for their draught cider as well as their beer. The nearest pub that took our draught cider was 14 miles away," he said. This realisation, together with a slight dip in profits in the early 1990s. led to the Idea of buying a pub. The Dunkertons’ son, Julian; by than part-owner of a small chain : of do thing retailers, offered to take an equal share in the pub business. This did not happen but with the success of the restaurant, Dunker- ton is now trying to persuade his son to invest in a £100,000 carbon- atlon plant “We feel that carbons tion will greatly increase our presence in the market,” he said- “It is aD to do with the public perception that only carbonated cider is the real thing. Hopefully it win be a superior prod- uct to the carbonated ciders of the big manufacturers, and probably the only organic carbonated cider -available." However, all this is still same way off - although not as for away as Dunkerton’s dream of eventually opening a distillery cm the site also growing, organically, all the vegetables used in the restaurant “AH these ideas seem a natural progression. I confess I am an eter- nal optimist, -1 he said. “Although 1 am 62 1 have no intention of retir- ing. We are working harder than ever. We have to. We feel we owe it to the local community that has supported us, and also to the faith placed in us by the Rural Develop- ment Commission. “We also have to think of the £20,000 we owe to the bank and toe fact that we have extended the mortgage on our house by £50,000 ® help finance the restaurant “I want to employ more people and to make this a place where peo- ple can drink the best organic cider and eat the best food for miles around. To me that seems quite a worthwhile thing to do." ■ Dunkertons Cider Company and Cider House Restaurant, Hays Head. Luntley, Pembridge, Leominster, Herefordshire HR6 9ED. Why it paid to be an amber gambler Stephen Court on a gold and silver company’s successful diversion B ob Rontaler was a reluctant convert to the charms of amber. He was working as a manager in a gold and silver jewellery business when a Pol- ish friend tried to interest him in selling the stone. “I had never worked with amber. The impression 1 had was of old ladies with very heavy baroque amber rings and necklaces. I was indiffer- ent, and treated it with tremen- dous scepticism,” he said. But Rontaler was eventually persuaded, and ordered around £3,500 worth of amber from Poland. That was back in the mid-1980s. Since then the annual turnover of his com- pany. Goldmajor, which imports and distributes amber jewellery, has passed Elm. The biggest growth has come in the past three years. Turnover leaped from £650,000 in 1993 to £1.200,000 in 1994, coinciding with the release of Steven Spielberg’s film Jurassic Park, which fea- tured insects fossilised in amber that enabled scientists to recreate dinosaurs. " Jurassic Park brought so much awareness,” said Ron- taler. “Our sales in the US qua- drupled. But our growth through the recession was pri- marily to do with the feet that we had a growing market for a product which was fashion- able. We worked hard to develop and sell the product" Amber is the fossilised resin of coniferous trees. Baltic amber Is 40m-60m years old, and has a high reputation. Its colour ranges from pale gold to a rich shade of brown. Rcmtaler's parents were Pol- ish. and moved to Britain after the second world war. His com- pany is based in west London, where one of the UK’s largest Polish communities lives. THL iVUAZ HOTEL ' Gi'Mli'!, v.4in . ’A iirjuniii: EVinf.- . Jv.’t* TSC Trl "II M Thr iiiiutHiU li-us K.n,- • VjiuIi • Nun > ,iL M,(i. - IK- P I'.mc li »*l * 7>.u K.thT K«»-l llms K.« Bob Rontaler with some of his jeweBtty Tiw*r Humph** It was through that commu- nity that Rontaler met his Pol- ish wife, Jaga, when she vis- ited London 20 years ago. Both are directors of Goldmajor. The bulk of the amber jewel- lery Rontaler buys is produced In Poland - and his knowledge of the language is invaluable “We deal with a large number of manufacturers and jewellery design®® in Poland, and buy the finished products from them," he said. Before the col- lapse of Poland’s Communist regime In 1989, buying had to be done through a state export agency. “After 1989, 1 started dealing directly with the manufactur- ers. At first 1 had the edge over competitors because I knew toe language and had the con- tacts. Over the last- two or three years, since the market has opened up, so has toe com- petitimL Costs are very high - they have gone up by five or six times." Rontaler now also uses manufacturers in Thai- land, because of the low labour costs, and in faraeL Around half of Goldmajor’s sales are to retail jewellers. Just under 20 per cent are to the Past Ti me s chain of gift shops^ 15 per cent are to other gift shops, and 6 per cent are to department stores. Just under 10 per cent of sales are for export, mainly to the US, Ger- many, Austria and east Asia. The company employs 10 full-time and two part-time staff, and has three agents two in En gland and one in Scotland - who work on a per- centage basis. Investment in Goldmajor has included a start-up bank loan of £15,000 and a £20.000 over- draft facility. The company' took out a £50.000 mortgmfc two years ago to buy its pres- ent headquarters in Ealing,, where Jaga Rontaler also runs a retail jewellery shop. A colour catalogue - now In. its fourth edition - has been a key factor in marketing, and Goldmajor exhibits at trade fairs in the UK and abroad. Rontaler is frustrated with Department of Trade and Industry regulations which rule out financial help with exhibiting because the major- ity of the company’s products, are imported. The biggest problem for Ron-; taler is financing the business:! “ft' s a juggling act making sure you have the goods for the client, and keeping the] manufacturers happy.” Of his amber, he added: “Each piece is individual. It, should tell a story." He pointed to a large chunk of amber from Dominica, estimated at 20m' years old. Trapped inside were . 20 fossilised insects. That piece was not for sale. ■ Goldmajor Ltd . 69 The Grove. London W5 5LL Tel Q181-51B OSSa Chew No. 1102: 1 Kc3e52FW4+ 3 Ko4 03 4 cwJ3 ma». Chess No.1101: 1 Bdl Kh7 2 Ngs+ K*h6(Kg8 3 h7) 3 gQN TOW. (Ws apologise tor its wn&sfem fasf weak; Til fill MVlK'la* n o a * x -*■ -A aei iohn As fpu. .... •'Uiiht/rs . ■ -i Til'll =r.... j •' Me -r ■ • '■■M •' ■" fe:";; ■ : J i(L- ' : 1 SW-.-.' v.. v . 1*1 us. • f Sr ps 'ii’.HSvr r h ■' .'Vr . vlV a. r * ..w tv-. 3 ?-"*- ■'*£W -? n -J!f^. r •’ gagfe . :fj-;.y , y-v'v : . .;- » . ► ' a?-i£v '/•,;' :'v: x _••}*. FINANCIAL TIMES WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25 /NOVEMBER 26 1995 The thrill of the chasse in WEEKEND FT III A part from distant church bells, there is little sign of life on the Segeuret road early on misty Sunday autumn mornings. I am not a dawn riser by choice, but this morning was different. In the company of Claude Chave. devoted hunter and member In good standing of the Society de Chasse of Segeu- ret village, I was setting off into the hills of Provence on the trail of wild boar. In order to shoot a boar, you must first find him. Claude and I were scouring his father's farm - 18 acres of rolling vine- yards - looking for freshly- made tracks. Boars are noctur- nal animals and in the departe- ment of the Vauduse, where rough and wooded hill country slopes down to rich farmlands, late night gourmands as well In the summer season they are *ibnd of dining on grapes before retiring to forest thickets near dawn. Now, with the harvest well behind us. we were hoping to find Lheir spoor in soft, newly- turned vineyard soil where the animals like to root far grubs and insects. We did indeed find signs of nocturnal activity, but not the ones we were looking for. Near a sharp bend we came across a car that had left the road at high speed. Overturned, its windshield shattered, it lay amid the dew-covered vines like a dead animal on its back. Had anyone been hurt, killed? We could not tell. “Ah. les jeuries" sighed Claude. Kids. “It happens on Saturday nights - they go off to the discotheques, they dance and drink until four in the morning, then they pile into a telephone pole, or a vineyard, or each other on the way home." The U jcune" that Claude was thinking most about was his own teenage son, Florent. More interested in music and discos ptd pretty girls than wild boar, Florent's late night sorties leave his parents concerned. “I do not push him," Claude said, "but 1 would be happy if he took an interest in hunting." It is not an interest all fathers would wish upon their sons. In England, the champi- oning or animal rights is less and less restricted to an extremist fringe: bunting is rural France Nicholas Woodsworth travels the hills of Provence in search of wild boar coming to be regarded by the urban majority as a cruel unnecessary parHtwr of an out- moded rural elite. In France, where the country roots of ordinary people go mach deeper - few are the Frenchmen who have to look further than one generation to find family living an the - the criticism is not nearly as harsh. I had my own reasons for feeling harsh. When, 15 years ago, I first moved to the Midi I took up residence in part of a crumbling old chateau. The owners, rural nobility in strait- ened circumstances, had let out their lands as a chasse garde - a private, leased hunt- ing ground. Every weekend in the hunt- ing season we were invaded by gun-toting city-dwellers from nearby Marseille. They had all the excited passing far which The land is so old, so carefully lived and worked on, that not a square inch of it is unknown or uncherished the French are famous, and more ammunition than sense. Going outside meant taking the murderous ehaq ce of being peppered by some butcher's boy on his day off. We stayed indoors, where lead shot merely tinkled down on the roof. I missed the sound of song- birds. My wife, however, stead- fastly defended hunting, or at least a less insane form of it Her own relatives - uncles, cousins and nephews from a large clan of farming people in the Vauduse - were enthusias- tic hunters: on visits during the Christmas season we were served up feasts of spit-roast thrush, boar in blood sauce, or stewed hare. None of this, my wife main- tained, was anything but hon- ourable. As practised by coun- try people, she said, hunting is not a sick aberration but a nat- ural extension of everyday PERSPECTIVES French rural life. No hunter myself, l remained sceptical. It was filially time, I had rtpriHaH l to have a look. □ □ □ Claude and I fo und no traces of boar tracks at all, but that did not mean the traditional Sunday hunt would not go ahead. In Provence, boar hunt- ing is collectively organised as a battue, a heat in which dogs and anything from eight to SO hunters participate. All over the district of Segeuret that morning, other members of the Soc&tt de Chasse were comb- ing vineyards and ravines, water holes and forest paths for signs of hoar. We all met up on the wooded plateau above the farmlands - some 20 whiskery, leathery- faced men in olive-drab cloth- ing. Deep tracks belonging to an animal of about gsnih had been found. But were they recent? Fino, a young liver-spotted hunting dog with droopy ears and a whippy, enthusiastic tail, was produced from the bank of a van. Collar bell clanging, he cast his head low to the ground, gntfTad , strained at his leash and began a low, loud, throaty baying. I bad difficulty understand- ing the lively planning strat- egy that followed - some of it was in the thick accents of back-woods Provence, the rest in the Provenpal language itself. But it was important; half the pleasure of hunting here, as half the pleasure of anything in Provence, lies in talk. Eventually we marched off to our assigned tasks, I accompanying Alain, Claude's brother-in-law, to a paste about a kilometre away. In theory a battue is designed to cut off a boar’s routes of escape. Using their miraculous noses, the hunter’s dogs follow the scent through thick bush to the boar's lair. The animal will sometimes turn on them, defending itself with its short, sharp tusks. More often it will flee, taking the narrow forest routes it habitually uses. The hunters, too, know some of these routes. The battue does not always work. The dogs can lose a not- wholly-fresh scent A wily boar can double back and evade his pursuers. The hunters can post themselves on the wrong trails. That morning Fino, a stand-in for Taillau, a more experienced dog gored by a boar and stitched up the week before, lost the scent in a vineyard. I did not mind at alL The autumn day was so glorious and mild, the countryside so rich, that the mm-ning passed unnoticed as we waited for Fino to take up the scent a gain From the hill where we sat I looked out over grape vines slowly turning red, across groves of olive trees heavy with green and black fruit, along rows of poplars as yellow and bright in this sea- son as taD nanrilp-flampp This land is so old, has been so long and carefully lived and worked on, that not a square inch of it is unknown or uncherished. Alain, a grape-grower like most of the hunt members, told me about his own vineyards, the months of hard work that precedes the harvest, the slack period that follows. When you own a small fam- ily farm, he told me, you can- not just drop everything and leave on holiday. There are animals to feed, daily chores to see to. If him ting began as a The last gasp in the league tables season John Authers examines how schools' performances are compared T his week, the UK gov- ernment's perfor- mance tables for all the schools In England, a huge statistical exercise covering exam results at GCSE and A-level, as well as vocational qualifications and statistics on truancy, spilled into the nation's newsrooms. it was the last gasp of a three-month “league table sea- son" which is now a part of the educational year. We had aL-eady seen exam figures for Independent schools, pub- lished by the Independent Schools Information Service (Isis), while several newspa- pers. published their own rank- ings. including the FT-i,000. printed last month, which ana- lysed A-level results. Arc parents any wiser after the govemment's conmbutioti. They will probably know little, if anything new about the best performers. But they will a lut more about the weakest. The government's informa- tion is limited. At the GLSE level, it merely asks what per cental** of pupils have reached three thresholds - least five subjects with a fij-nde C (equivalent to nn old GCh Q-level pass', at least five with a grade G (equivalent to an old CSE pass) ami passing at least Dne with a grade G. . This is not a good msm for measuring «j ccl r le ^ as there is no record of how pupils perform above a UnW C, and many schools tie for first position on 1M per eeut. However, media attention has concentrated on it. wrongly. Schools have reg^; U&U a sharp Imp npfj® the "five rs" yardstick since the first government tables appeared in improving h5S 3S.3 por rent per cunt Oils year. Ho»tier. improvement is tapering The government’s top 10 : - . .” Rank School - ’ : ;V' ; 1 King Edward VI High School for Btontogtan 2 King Edward's School, »mingham ■/ 3 Lady 0**nor Holes School, HscofXnrv - 4 Wfcrvrt* School 5 WHrtngten QWs 1 School, Manctwtar 6 Downs House School, Thatriwu, BaricaWm/ 7 Natfntfwm Wgh Sdwl • 8 Bolton School Boys' DMatoa. Bettor)' g Potam Hall School. Dnfngton 10 uaighboroutfi Wgh School, MtefBWtfre . ' Tt» FT top 10. .... • R*hk School -.' StPaufa School, London • \ 2 TMricl>a^Co8ega,HampaWra 3 Wwtmjnator School, London < School GliWfa^ -5 Otis' School, London .8 - Eton OoBega. WWscr, BefloNra 7 . King* Co8ag* School, London 8 . - North London Gofegfota, London - ■>’ 9 . : Wnq Bhwtf VI Hfcb Sited fee GHtfBim*ghm . . ..-10 h afaartaahanf tote's, Borghsm w ood, HarthnhWna with the average rising only by 0.2 percentage points this year. Meanwhile, the numbers fail- ing to pass at any grade are rising. While the proportion getting at least one G rose from 91-3 to 93 per cent in 1993, it fell again this year, from 923 to 91.9 per cent So this year there was a greater rise in the numbers leaving school without any qualifications than there was in the numbers gaining the passport to move on to A-levels and higher education. Education reform groups, such as Article 26. claim that league tables have helped to this polarisation. Some councils ask teachers to give extra attention to children on the C*D borderline, a practice which seems inevitable while ibe government continues to express its rankings as a series of thresholds. , Local education authorities performances can vary widely at different levels. Klngston- upon-Tbames. for example, top council in the country on the five C5 measure, saw 7.8 per cent of Its pupils leave with nothing - ranking It only 55th. Further, exam boards say pass rates in English and Maths - compulsory subjects for all - fell this year, suggest- ing schools are concentrating on helping students reach the five Cs threshold, even if that means focusing on less impor- tant subjects. Claims that league tables are distorting schools' behaviour win continue until the govern- ment asks for different indica- tors. The most obvious would be to ask for schools’ average point scores - where a G grade was worth one paint, an F two and so on. This would reward schools for making improve- ments across the board. Such a points system is used by the government for compar- ing results at A-level. However, It still arrives at very different rankings from the FT’S. There are two reasons for this. First, the government’s measures are geared to allow- ing direct comparisons between schools and further education colleges, where many students might fat* only one A-level as part of a pre- dominantly vocational course. The government therefore asks for three measures: the aver- age total points per pupil attempting two or mare A-lev- els, the average of those attempting one, and the aver- age points per each examina- tion entered. The FTs tables only take into account points per g**™ entry and total points per can- didate - making no distinction between those only attempting one and candidates taking full academic courses. There is a case for changing to the gov- ernment's system, which many schools made forcefully to the FT, because the new GNVQs (broad-based vocational qualifi- cations intended to be equiva- lent to two A-levels) are increasing in popularity. Second, the government Includes General Studies A-level in its figures, even though many universities do not recognise it, and some schools make It a compulsory "extra" to be attempted on the basis of only one or two peri- ods each week.- The FT excludes General Studies. Only one school made it into both the FT’S top 10 and the go ven u nent’s (Judged on aver- age points per pupil attempting two or more A-levels) - King Edward VI High School for Girls in Birmingham. ■ Three schools hove pointed out errors in the FT- 1,000 sur- vey. Lntymer School in Edmon- ton, north London, should have been listed m the tap 10 state coeducational schools; Kesteven & Sleaford High, Lincolnshire, should kaoe appeared in the top 10 state girls' schools. Holy Cross College, Bury, also car reeled its points per pupil from 12.7 to 14.34, ranking it at about 870, rather than 939. Our apolo- gies. necessity, a means for poor peasant formers to put meat on the table, it has continued as a pastime today because formers remain tied to the land It was easy enough chatting to one brawny, mustachioed hunter - it was slightly more intimidating talking to 20 of them when, still boarless, we met for lunch. These were men who have known each other since childhood. Hunting gives them a chance to maintain those tight bonds, not just across property lines, but across generations. Over a fire on which sau- sages were being cooked I met Claude’s father, now elderly but as passionate about hunt- ing as when he was 20. Rough and forbidding the group may have looked, but they were just as shy of strangers as 1 was of them. When we finally sat down I found them friendly, simple, and generous. "Mangez, bon sang!” they insisted, urging pate, cheese, bread and their own strong red wine on me. After lunch, sated and sleepy, relaxed in each other's com- pany, they lay down on the grass and swapped hunting stories stretching back decades. The afternoon passed as quickly as the morning. Fino picked up the scent again, fain- ter than ever, and followed hesitantly. But no one seemed overly thirsty for blood. Claude and 1 made our way to a poste on a scrub- oak -covered ridge, enjoying the walk as much as anything. Shooting a boar was not the sole end of boar hunting, Claude agreed - it happens on about one hunt out of five. Unlike most of his childhood friends, Claude left the forming world, and today works in a bank in nearby Vaison-la- Romain. Returning to the woods whenever he can is his way of keeping contact with the past. For him it is all at once a sort of social cement, an old coun- try tradition, a deep tie to the land, and an appreciation of nature. “Et. en plus ", he said, “on rigole” - we have a good time. We sat there through an afternoon silent but for the dropping of acorns. Once, the breeze brought from far away a faint sound of baying and the ringing of a dog's bell. It soon faded. I was just as happy not to have seen an animal shot and cut up and shared out into pieces. In missing that bloody ritual I had seen some gentler, perhaps more meaningful ones. I am no more of a hunter than I was before, but have a little more affection for some of those who are. ■m ,, . * ’ ' ■ ■ -p£ ' fat* . ■ : . -y. r ’?*>■. , „ - ; 1 . , .y LE TEMPS CHANEL ia CARAT GOLD WATCH BRACELET OF CULTURED PEARLS ON FINE -SOLD CHAINS SWISS CRAFTSMANSHIP CHANEL fliSuTiOUC SB Old BOND STBELT LONDON (HI CHANEL BOUTIQUE 31 BLOANE STWCCT LONDON SKI vtPtNN a WEBB HEuCNT STREET LONf-DN *1 CEDBGC PUAGWELL LTD JEIkEllEPS STOlirOPO UEON AVON Fine JEWELLERY doom RABkoo^ LONDON awl W.XTChLB or SWITZERLAND IT HIND STREET MANC-CSTd HIND STREET MANCHESTER 4 IV WEEKEND FT FINANCIAL TIMES WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25 /NO VEMBER 26 1995 FASHION Ii -V m W, V- - v-| ii- $>;- serf?'"::*. !g&' 'SSS^'V . . S> •■• • U.«wv v -' •. l y 3W'- 5l ’ J,: - l UiS* R-.r : ' □ Above: ftafian atyte fur codanc brown woof and cashmere coat, wfth take fur trim, £14)00 from Giorgio Armani, 37-42 Staana Street, London SW1. (Tel: 0171-235 6232} □ Right the akkmy-ixiy look from Giorgio Annank gray wool angora cost, £1,300 bvbBbUo at 37-42 Sloane Street, London SW1. (0171-235 623q □ Far right: Bog-standard ‘trad’, can t-go-wi on g -wi th: grey double breasted coat, £150 by mafl order Next Directory (0345-100500) aid from selected branches, for stockists ring 0116-284 0424 Urban camouflage for City toilers jun M! • • •• ais 21 : su - as® &■■>:*> ijsi VS*' •*• * - 1 • rsLrsrrt' in ?:>;»• M ;jlflrv. • '■ .• iLa’is!'- V. • ■ A coat is a serious purchase, a hig invest- ment in money and style. In Manhattan, they do not take the matter lightly. After Labor Day, at the end of August, thoughts turn to autumn and warm and stylish clothes. Time to get some high-style cud status. Much the same attitude prevails in European cities, where the coat is a cannon in the armoury or style. Astonishingly, in Britain, and particularly in London, there is on unspoken consensus that the warm winter coat is sissy, and that pos- session of a coat implies that ouc is regularly and stunningly exposed to weather. U is normal to do without a coat for as long as possible. In British cities, our favourite winter coat styles are largely becoming anachronisms. Iain Finlayson reports Politicians and television inter- viewers are filmed huddled coatless outside Parliament. Cabinet minis- ters stride carelessly coatless along Downing Street, high-minded! y dis- daining the chill wind of reality. This is so much the norm that exceptions are now of great public interest - the BBC's former political commentator John Cole was as famous for his big black and white herringbone-patterned coat as Douglas Hurd was for his tailored green loden. A coat is certainly a hindrance in a car. But increasingly, the city is more easily and more quickly nego- tiated by foot. City centres are admittedly several degrees warmer than open country, but on windy streets and comers the wind can still freeze the marrow. Certain styles of coat are urban classics. Outside the boundaries of the City, jobbing Johns and corpo- rate Kens become city slickers - objects of suspicion and mistrust even - particularly in their velvet- collared covert coats. There is a recurrent look disingenuously known as country-come-to-town, but it does not work in reverse. The townie has to tone down what he wears before the concrete under his city-slippered feet gives way to squelching mud under his wellies. Any country coat that has not been buried in a bog to mature for a few years is liable to stand out. The classic town coat changes very little. For many, it is not a whimsical item of fashion. The city coat is a basic, serious purchase. For sober souls, the options are solid camel, black or navy, in an expensive fabric, severely cut from an unrhang in g template. The classic coat is urban camou- flage; the fashion coat is urban per- siflage. If it Is an annual impulse buy, you can afford to be flighty; if it is an annual no-nonsense career investment, you will go for the tra- ditional coat that does not, like an excitable firtures dealer, live glori- ously for only one season. The urban British city coat is a heavy-duty, structured piece of work - the opulent and impressive Chesterfield; the severely-cut navy slimline banker's coat; the solid British warm. The sheer substance of such a coat is comforting in itself, and speaks sonorously of respectability, of no fears for a rainy or a cold day. . In fact, such a coat is increasingly an anachronism. It is as formal as a dinner jacket or a morning suit It is good only on those occasions when an appearance of tailored decorum is traditional. It is as enduring and unchangeable as the British class system - which is not to say it cannot be hijacked by irony and subverted by style. Like any style icon, it is liable to be re-interpreted by post-modernists and shockingly exposed and decon- structed. There are several options in this year’s repertoire - the short to mid- length American-styie car coat Is making a significant reappearance, reinvented by London and Paris designers, in direct contrast to the trend towards length, virtually to the point of dusting the shoes, favoured by the fashion gurus of Milan. Although Italian designers - Armani. Dolce e Gabhana, Valen- tino, ffianfranen Ferre - smother coat collars in fur, the principal feeling is for austerity: dark or sober colours, clean and uncompli- cated lines, loose and straight- flowing from broad shoulders. The short car coat is more lively - big- collared. bulky, casual rather than tailored. Designers for the youth market - Mi c hael Ears, Katherine Hamnett, Jean Paul Gaultier - have opted for the skinny-boy look with coats that revive the sharp, tight, tailored Mod mode in camel or pale-coloured wool, cashmere and cameL Set-in sleeves reduce shoulder width, high buttoning narrows and lengthens the torso, tailoring detail sharpens the silhouette. These are dandy lit- tle coats that cany the summer's fashion for ephebee through to win- ter. They are meant for the slim, slightly built young man Nevertheless, they look like they have the potential to punch above their weight: this is a new look that designers will be hard-pressed to ignore. The big guy in the hig coat will be slugging it out with the scrawny kid in the close-fitting fashing coat for seasons to come. S&njSr ,1- •• . . • hiirjPv-i.- ; . • s, Sr.-ir- : '‘L* .V- ... &s5i -.\i p..- - ;• aoS.'--: i_ ; . . tsV v.r ■ tt tOk'k" in ian: iRitTk-ur.-xjritf BABY LAMB SHEARLING TOGGLE B From our Collection ol Shearling Coats Made in Italy It □ Left: American-styie car coat makes a reapp e a r a nce: camel alpaca version, £355 from Paul Smith, 41-43 RoraJ Street London WG2. {0171-836 7828) Photograph (left) tty Mall Me Inemey m ,V7. -f -*n ■ -fi i . ' fca Tie World's Pi Best Hu'i Underwear. JEWELLER < I \ C E 165? '■*rf £1750 1 BOUCHERON S U L K A •«»rv |- Ml.. MMEIMUm MMKVUWM MIBU.il 180, New Bond Strew • London WIY9FP - Tel.: 071 W 0^83 19 Old Bond Sum London 0171 493 4468 zimherlj AvilUdU U lull., >rfi (■Iklaa (lam, zinuii Taull AG Cff-lMJ Pfco« r M2 HI 41 «1 »«* uiniHi), — • _w * * t*.t> *.*>.< • FINANCIAL TIMES WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25/NOVEMBER 26 1995 WEEKEND FT FASHION Invitation to winter wedding chic T here is something indelibly chic about a winter wedding. Candlelit churches; Gothic castles fes- tooned with berries and green- ery; and champagne toasts around log fires are images that spring to mind. Far most wedding goers, winter nuptials are a far more inspiring and elegant prospect than the cold salmon and stifling marquee affairs of the summer months. The winter wedding invita- tion, however, also brings the dilemma of what to wear. Every guest knows the form for tire summer ceremony, where a smart, colourful suit and matching straw hat invari- ably fits tbe bOl, but a winter wedding requires more effort and thought Not only are there practical problems to contend with - draughty churches and waiting in the cold - but just as the winter bride is likely to opt for a more inspired choice of dress, so something a little more dramatic and Bohemian is expected of the guest Much depends cm the mood and setting of the ceremony. Nearly 51.000 weddings, 17 per cent of the total figure, take 4D Right Burgundy velvet tunic, £420, and palazzos, £410 by Georgina Von Etzdorf, 149 Sloane Street, London SW1. Hat £156, by Stephen Jones from Harvey Nichols, London SW1. Glass beads, £3965 from Liberty, Regent Street, London W1 Guests have the opportunity to be more dramatic and Bohemian at this time of year, writes Karen Wheeler place in the UK between November and February and the figure looks likely to increase. Last year's amend- ment to the Marriage Act wid- ened tbe scope of settings to include more than 400 licensed venues in the UK ranging from stately homes and hotels to castles. “Such ceremonies tend to be more of a production. In fash- ion terms it means a more adventurous bride and a licence for the guests to dress more flamboyantly," says Car- ole Hamilton, editor of You and Your Wedding. Fur trims, marabou feathers and dramatic accessories are perfect for a winter wedding. Guests are free to wear styles and fabrics such as velvet satin and brocade, more nor- mally associated with evening wear. It is a good idea, how- ever, for guests to take their cue from the bride. Charlotte Green, executive assistant to the managing director of Herm&s, expects that most of the guests at her wedding in a candlelit Cornish church in mid-December will opt for evening style clothes with jackets over the top. The bride herself will be wearing a two-piece ensemble of dark cream gfifc skirt richly coloured, gold brocade top with a claret velvet'shawL “It will all be very Christ- massy - ribbons, greenery and red and gold baubles instead of fresh flowers as table decora- tions, for example, and because it will go straight on through to an evening reception, a lot of the guests will be wearing red or black - colours not tra- ditionally worn at weddings." For women who have never felt comfortable in crayon col- ours the great joy of a winter ceremony is that a darker col- our palette is acceptable. While the summer wedding dress code encourages vivid hues, the winter ceremony allows even the moth er-of -the-bri 6e to break free from the constraints of cobalt blue and opt for some- thing a little more subtle. Deep jewel tones are ideal and fortunately fashion favours a palette of rich choco- late brown, plum, deep forest green and midnight blue. Rules are being broken all the time and even black, once consid- ered a serious solecism, is now deemed acceptable for guests. The rale abont avoiding white or cream at a white wed- ding, however, still stands. According to AJ. Knight fash- ion editor of Brides And Setting Up Same: "Guests should show consideration and never look whiter than the bride." Trouser suits are a good cold-weather option and are available in a wide choice of textures and fabrics such as fake ponyskto. A shift dress with a matching coat is another good option (you can simply take off the coat in the evening} while long-length skirts or floaty layers with a tailored jacket are a good alter- native to the short, tailored suit - not least because they circumvent the question of sheer hosiery and exposed legs which have been deemed fash- ionable this season. Devotees of the tailored skirt suit should opt for something in a lusher, more opulent tex- ture than usual - Episode's pale pink suit in thick, sump- tuous boude. for example fits the bill perfectly. You cannot go wrong in a devote velvet tunic and match- ing palaaans In deep plum or inky bine tram Georgina von Etzdorf or English Eccentrics. At Liberty in London, fabu- lously opulent pleated silk dresses and velvet jackets by Charles and Patricia Lester are popular with guests attending glamorous winter weddings - though with price tags of £L500 it would have to be a particularly special wedding. Selina Blow's signature Nehru Jackets in velvet bro- cade or tartan - although not she is quick to point out "the variety that decorates biscuit tins” - look extremely stylish. Blow suggests wearing a Nehru Jacket over a bias-cut satin slip dress. Her shop in Elizabeth Street London SWL, also stocks neat satin bags by Lulu Guinness and gorgeous shot velvet scarves by Harriet Anstruther. As to hats: "Straw should be totally avoided. You have to choose a bat made from a heavier weight fabric to match what you are wearing other- wise you look very unbalanced and silly” says hat designer GiBy Forge. Top hats, velvet and felt styles with high crowns, and anything sporting plumage or marabou trims are good choices. Make-up too is more fun for a winter wedding. Make-up art- ist Frances Prescott suggests emphasising the eyes with No.Ts Colour Perfect Shadow In Nightshade and Lash Defin- ing Mascara and using a deeper colour on the Ups such as No.Ts Morello Cherry while Blush Perfect Pearls in Spice add colour to the cbeeks. Nails for winter should remain pale to look modem - try Lasting Nail Enamel in Petal. Finally, you need a good pair of gloves and elegant closed toe shoes; while a fake fur muf- fler by Gilly Forge or a velvet shawl or scarf from Georgina von Etzdorf will help keep you warm in a chilly church. □ Below left Oyster satin jacket £215, and long wrap skirt, £185, both by Sara Sturgeon from Liberty, Regent Street, London Wt. Satin mules, £239, by Ptriippe Model from Pied a Terra, 31 Okf Bond Street, London W1. Earrings, £34, by Pe»nL from Liberty •1 Below right: Grew sOk fWad dress, £1,245, by Charles and Patricia Lester from Liberty, Regent Street, London Wl. Silver velvet Nehru Jacket £440, by Selina Blow, 42 EHzabeth Street London SW1. , Fake fur hat £78, by GSBy Forge, ^ma3 order tab 0171-603 3833) □ Right Brocade jacket £580, and silver satin dress, £360, by Sefina Blow and satin bag, £145, by Lulu Guinness, ail at 42 Szabeth Street London SW1. Navy velvet hat £295, by Herbert Johnson, 30 New Bond Street London Wl. Shoes, £249, by NBchel Perry, Pied a Terre, 31 Old Bond Street London Wl Chris Braceweil Karon Wheeter Hair Davide Dkxtomh at DG International Hairdressing, 30-35 Drury Lane, London WCZ Make-up— Frances Prescott using Boots No.7 :•* The Londinium. / Yff/f A* ft *’/• i 'firtft/tf/f. • Vfwtt/e. w refer/ mn/ ye/fott* mefv/. • fttfimt utat/e ,‘AwnwW ./•' uumiiill sto»vt,H***oni, &tLFjnb«[i, Hahvcy Nichols and uiccrtD bhancho Avail****- ATS AirKFU M toif/t y/fftrfc Moocf/te/tf. • y/rw, 'fitt/t v -nwnftr/tf. 'iOf«crrc/ /oA/wtj c/trrf*. . c //tfcr/ttrfmmr/ytnrra»fee of Watches or Switzerland, The Goldsmiths group, Mapfin k Wlbb a. Leading jitilufi nationwide. loHijAf p/trr wince AfljW. — X VI WEEKEND FT FINANCIAL TIMES WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25 /NOVEMBER 26 1995 HOW TO SPEND IT New York: the buzz, the biz, the fun, the chaos Lucia van der Post enjoys the helter-skelter of the Big Apple I f you live in New York it may be wearying, but to the visitor the chaos, the frantic bug, the bustle and bravado are all port of its charm. And when it comes to chic streets and shop- ping. New Yorkers are spoiled for choice. Biggest, best, glossiest, whackiest, strangest looniest, wherever your tastes lie. It is all in there somewhere. No city in the world Is more skilled at making you “need" the sort of thin gs you never knew existed until you went there. Shopping is a seriously com- petitive sport It may leave you with empty pockets but one thing is certain - you will have had a lot of fun along the way. You will not be there long before you discover that fitness and health ore the new reli- gions and that age (anything over. say. 17-years -old) is the big bogy. Television screens are filled with beauteous blondes, skins smooth as peaches, panicking at the merest hint of a wrinkle. The great trouble is this anxi- ety is catching. While eating my roam- service muffins to the soothing tones of a certain Dr Howard Murad, an eminent dermatolo- gist, and bevies of beautiful patients all attesting to the wondrous powers of his Advanced Glycolic Formula, 1 found myself reaching for my credit card and about to dial the 1-800 number. I was up in a trice and -V’—Tb Bgggpj .■ A':.', V-'C I v !' v Slip®: rushed straight on down to Barney’s to avert what might become a severe dermatologi- cal catastrophe unless I took action fast Barney's, at 61 Madison Ave- nue. is where ail the newest beauty names are to be found. Its absolutely frenetic lunch- time rendezvous is aptly named Mad 'El. The grand ladies who used to preside over the beauty scene (Elizabeth Arden, Estee Lau- der, Helena Rubinstein er al) are being given the run-around by a thrusting young bunch of make-up artists, all of whom ore developing beauty lines of their own which are up-to-the-minute and competi- tively priced. They have so rattled the established cosmetics world that the bigger companies are trying to buy them (Estee Lau- der. for instance, has bought 51 per cent of Mac as well as the British distribution of Bobbi Brown). Barney's (with Mac, Trish McEvoy, Francois Narf and others) and Bergdorf Goodman (with Bobbi Brown) are slug- ging it out on the beauty counters using hip make-up ranges as bait If you have the nerve you can spend a jolly morning trying them all out, having your face made-over and get away without spending a dime. For the record, brown lipstick (Mac’s Mocca and Bobbi Brown's Mocca Stain) is all the rage and you shine it up with lipglos®. You can buy It in mm Eastern aesthetics at Tafcash'maga the UK but it is cheaper in the US. Barney's has, for the last couple of years, been the must- see store on any shopper’s list Its clean, modem, architectur- ally-Ied style makes it a delight to wander through but its thunder has been stolen recently by Calvin Klein who has opened his achingly chaste, pared-down, minimalist store just up the road at 654 Madison Avenue. Designed by John Pawson,- the British architect it is, as fferperk Bazaar so aptly put it “So beautiful- So white. So . . . empty." Prices you should know, in case you find a frock you fancy, are far from chaste. When it comes to inciting sheer naked acquisitiveness the jewel-like T akashimay a, at 693 Fifth Avenue, would be hard to beat It offers a tightly- edited. exquisitely beautiful selection of everything from beauty products and antiques to clothing and jewellery, with a strong bias towards the hand-crafted and the one-off Chaste, pared down, m 'rtma i w fc tha new Catvin KUn stora Eastern aesthetics are much in evidence with some espe- cially fine antique Japanese ceramics on sale. Breath- takingly beautiful, sophisti- cated and not as expensive as you might expect You could perhaps contemplate a bar of soap. Bloomingdale's lingerie department continues to be source of endless delight Since I last checked it out the whizz o thinkers at mission control in the big Lingerie companies have come up with new ranges of garments designed to deal with problems you never knew you had. Smoothie ("Does What Your Diet Doesn't!”) is the company to watch. It offers the “Waist Eliminator Brief’, the “Tummy Terminator", and “Thigh Tamer”. New-age thinking is every- where. Felisshno on 10 West 56th Street is the new age department store, small (“small” yon will remember, being "beautiful”) and propped with suitably tiny departments with names such as The Republic of Teas, stocking goods such as candles and eco- friendly linen. New-age people take their beauty treatments at Cara pan (Pueblo Indian for “retreat and renewal”) at 5 STREETS AHEAD NEW YORK West 16th Street and they go to Star Magic, 73 and Amsterdam for their spiritual appurte- nances. Century 21 (downtown at 22 Cortland Street) a hot-shot Wall Street Investment broker told me, is where she and her male colleagues- go to trawl through three floors of designer clothing (Donna TTaran Calvin Klein and all the rest) at -marked down prices. _ Of the many small women’s fashion shops which New York has to offer, a. particular favourite is Morgans Le Faye at 748 Madison Avenue. Less for the ladies- wh o-lunch set. these are clothes for those who like a more restrained thoug h quirkier style. If Yohji Yama- moto and Issey Miyake are your taste, then Morgana Le Faye will be the shop for you. At the high designer end of the scale there is Charivari 57, 18 West 57th Street, whore the taste is exquisite, the selection careful and the prices high. Product at No. 71 Mercer Street SoHo, is the hot new shop for the young set Here the “wont-get-out-of-bed for less than $10,000 a day” set do their shopping and Sophia Cop- pola, daughter of film director Francis, is a regular. It seems to specialise in the Prada look at non-Prada prices - silk-satin sleeveless shift dresses _ and Jong strapless sheath dresses - for evening. Silk charmeuse shirts are in lots of pretty col- ours including purple, lime- green (lime-green is what you will be wearing next spring) chocolate and plum satin. There is also a selection of fun dothing such as funky monkey fur coats in lavender or sky- blue. Old Navy is a chain new to me but itslatest branch was opening. <610 6th Avenne) to great publicity while I was there. . It looks set to give Gap a run for its money, offering the same kind of preppy look far children, and adults. On .the opening day, nylon kagbuls in bright orange and yellow were befog stuffed into huge black mesh carrier bags and men’s sporty fleece jackets were, as they say in the trade, “walking out of the door”. If you are looking for items far the home. New York, has more to offer than ever before - your main trouble will be carrying it alL ABC, at 888 Broadway at El9th Street, is, in my viem* the best home department stare in the world. It is mud- dled, chaotic and boasts no such thing as a consistent eye or a finely tuned editing hand - instead every floor of this giant warehouse is different in mood and flavour and you can taka your pick from colourful Mexicans and cast-off 1930s furniture to charming rugs and bric-a-brac. Pottery Barn (seven branches in New York alone - of which perhaps the most cen- tral is 117 E 59th Street) and Crate & Barrel (650 Madison Avenue) offer stunning value for money. The style of each is glean, easy to live with and, compared with anything in Britain, incredibly well-priced. Go for glass, china, candle- sticks, cute salt and pepper sets. In SoHo there are lots of wonderful shops with beautiful and quirky things for house and home - look out far Zona Continued on next page One Night At The Sherry-Netherland, You’ll Never Want To Stay In A Hotel Again. . -tit CHRONOGRAPH THE ART OF BEING UNIQUE. ' When you first arrive at The Sheny-Netherland, you may have the same reaction as many of our guests. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” Which is hardly surprising, because there’s nothing like The Sherry-Netherland- Instead of the usual crowded hotel lobby, the quiet marble-columned space looks like the interior of a classical European building. Which is understandable. came from. Some have marble bathrooms, hand- loomed French carpets, crystal chandeliers. We even have a library. . f Ask for a book or a movie. $ It will be in your room in minutes. And we have the best location in New York. Across from Central Park, a few steps from Bergdorf Goodman, Tiffany, and EA.O. Schwarz — and BOtWKKECOVASE waeoFOUBSjTEs just a short walk to In . A.' ,-jrer Chronorcflcx movement ’ with split second and perpetual calendar. i-W; ELLERS SINCE 1847 YORK - GENEVA - MILAN - MUNICH - HONG KONG - TOKYO 03C hundred and furry Cjnicr stores in major cities worldwide. It was inspired by the Vatican Library. Although this is your first visit, the concierge greets you by name, as will the staff. Of which we have two to three per guest. (At a hotel, die reverse is true.) The serendipities continue. When did you last enter an elevator chat was a work of art? Where a white-gloved oper- ator whisks you silently up to your floor. JBv V . ShSm The suites and raoms are another revelation. Some contain fUffl antiques worthy of the Vanderbilt Mansion, which in many cases is where they EVBJOUflCUCKBAOESBNATfflUUOMAIK^W Rockefeller Center. I haiw OJ wr-**, R£SlA The Sherry-Netherland is not a hotel. Rather, it is 0RW a magnificent residence ' . ' owned by a small group JP’ji * • / $£ of exceptionally t diffident people who .. live there. It’s their place in town. j^If you, too, would like to enjoy their |Hjb kind of luxury, we invite you t0 Ca ^ ^ r * ^° u ‘ s Ventresca at fig* 212-355-2800. jjr ^ we warn you. After one night with us, you may never want to stay in a hotel again. a&SH€RRy-N€TH€RlAND Your Place In Town HARRY OPRAH'S Vi RESTAURANT SERVES YOU W Lv? THBROWNGROOM- E’V OR H YOUR SURE ; _Vh4- ->«*• v? HSON T Mi , HOW TO SPEND IT Take advantage of chaos in the electronics world Alice Raws thorn finds bargains and innovations in a buyer's market Beauty Anas from make-up artists are ousting Hie old, big names E ven if yon are one of those unfortunates who bought a Beta- max rather than a VHS as their first video cas- sette recorder, or who splashed out an a Rabbit mobile phone, at least you can feel confident that there are plenty of elec- tronic bargains cm the market this Christmas. The electronics industry is in a dreadful state - and the con- sumer is chief beneficiary. Weak sa les in the Train mar- kets of Japan, the US and Ger- many, coupled with growing competition from emerging Asian producers, such as Sam- sung and Goldstar in South Korea, has placed the Japanese and European electronics giants under tremendous pres- sure. Manufacturers have contin- ued to upgrade existing prod- ucts and introduce new ones: from the digital camcorder, to the new wave of wide-screen televisions and the forthcom- ing digital video disc systems, due to go on sale late next IMS new wife -TCLEVlSlc^l^p/ RB-lG!0u$ WMM&& jff From previous page (97 Greene Street), for Portico * Bed and Bath at 379 West Broadway and Wo lfman Gold - (116 Greene Street). And while r you are there do not miss Dean & Deluca (560 Broadway and * the corner of Prince Street) ’ where the SoHo loft-set cruise ; the aisles for pastas, cheese, herbs, teas, salsas and drink a cappuccino at the bar. Appliances Overseas, 278 5th Avenue, is the place for cut- * price mobile phones, answer- ing machines, computers, fax machines and all the other giz- mos that are deemed essential ' for hip mid-1990s' life. Do as New Yorkers do and try to cut ■ a deal - the shop will also pack and ship. Do not forget the Metropoli- tan Museum of Art 15th Ave* ate ate ^ *2; ■&= OFBONDSnSET 1 I lVurfuNf vi*ct ' Vr A \\ ' LMffTKir ptklVl Kw "■^S " KuijHIr po>> Slimline Travel Wallet Fib a Mombnl insiJe hew pn*cl cns.no Nc* Hi«J Sui-cl SlratK- Sircifl.'Uai'C} Nk-IwIn 401 Floor rdcphtw: uruO 1 * KS5S tui-umilr' HI 71 -WH 2*73 nue and 82nd Street) - dip into the Oceanographic art (or Graeco-Roman or whatever else you fancy) and then visit one of the world's most attrac- tive museum shops. Wonderful books, paper and cards. Every Sunday afternoon there is a flea market on 6th avenue and 26th Street - get there early - and you can find any thing and everything there if you have a discerning eye and a flair for bargaining - in particular good antique and retro spectacle frames from Fabulous Fanny’s. For more antiques check out Annex Antiques Fair and Flea Market, 6th Avenue and 25th Street. For antique clothing the Antique Boutique on lower Broadway at 712 is an many a New Yorker’s shopping beat If you have ever wondered why New York women seem to have such great hair and nails the answer may be that it is easier to get them looked after there than anywhere else I know. Almost every street comer has a Jean Louis David salon (young, modern and very quick) where you can Just walk in (no. appointment needed) and have your hair cut, blow dried and set far $16.50. Korean manicurists all over town (1 can recommend Shalom on Lexington Avenue) do quick expert work far about $30. You will, I do assure you, seem trad and out of touch if you opt for a pale and lady-like French manicure - be daring and go for up-to-the-minute dark purple, almost black (of which the apogee is probably Chanel's Rouge Noir). Almost all the department stores have excellent collec- tions of menswear (a personal favourite is perhaps Barney’s and Paul Stuart seems to be the favourite for the smart East Coast preppy look) but there are other smaller, more interesting places to shop. Those whose tastes run along gentlemanly lines, but who nevertheless like* a little wit and nonchalance about their person, might like to shop in the peace and quiet of a small, chic, upper Eastside men's shop called Peter Elliott, at 1070 Madison Avenue. There is an amazing line in nifty ties, butter-soft cashmere shirts, and the kind of attention that brings him customers from all over the US. New Republic on Spring Street, and If in SoHo are three smaller boutiques fix' the sort of chap who works in the cre- ative industry - or at least hopes people will think he does. No one in New York, who is not getting paid to do it, seems to cook (a spot survey reveals that the average fridge con- tains a bottle of champagne, a bar of chocolate and packets of vitamins) so restaurant culture remains a matter of high import. Upper Eastside neighbour- hood eateries which are cur- rently chic include Sette Mezzo, 969 Lexington Avenue, where the food is terrific and the clientele worth watching. Coco Pazzo, 23 East 74th Street has wonderful antipasti and was absolutely packed when I was there and Ici at 19 East 69th Street is worth a visit ■ When to stay: □ For utter bliss: The Carlyle, Madison Avenue, E 76th Street Old-fashioned (m the best sense of die word) with a sense of old-style New York and an air of serious luxe. For workout freaks who feel insecure when far from a spa or a massage - and who prefer to stay mid-town - try The Penin- sula, 700 Fifth Avenue at SSih Street. International, up-to-the-minute and with a much-frequented spa. For those who believe small is beautiful. The Lowed, 28 East 63rd Street is quiet, charming, spacious and special. For the hip designerfmediaf advertising world set I recom- mend The Royalton, 44 W 44th St Phdippe Starch's theatrical design makes it worth the pil- grimage and, my dear, anyone who is anyone in the media may be seen hatching there. ■ Current rate of exchange is $1.56 to the l Beauty editors’ tips Go to Cosmetics Plus for detectable small beauty Homs, that you cannot obtain in Britain, particularly inexpensive obscure items for nags and hair. Choose giant-sized bottles of Matrix Conditioner or Logics Conditioner (both for the hair), almost anything by UaybdDne -but particularly its Great Lash mascara (S4.18 and very lustrous) and its Rolflng Kissing Potion ($14.19) for the wet, wet, shiny look. Esfc£e Lauder's Thigh Zone (not available in the UK until : tha spring) Is the latest attempt to deal with ceflufite. Power Bars are the healthy snack - “all the nutrients of a banana but a won’t squash in your bag.” But they have also had to cut prices, which means that in many sectors consumers can buy higher quality electronic products more cheaply than ever before. Televisions One of the rnarn areas of inno- vation is in televisions, with the introduction of widescreen televisions, already popular in Japan, to Europe as PALplus standard sets. The PALplus format offers improved visual and sound quality and enables films to be viewed in their orig- inal cinematic proportions. Wide-screens are the same shape as ringma screens and at first it was thought they would be a cult product The Japa- nese experience has shown, however, that they appeal to a broad range of film and sports fans. The wide-screen was laiinnhari in Japan three years ago, hut accounts for a third of aH TV sets bought there this year. Sales have been slower to take off in Europe, largely because there is relatively lit- tle PALplus programming. So far sales have been strangest in Germany, where PALplus programming is more common. Nokia was the first manufac- turer to launch widescreen in Europe, but others, including Sony, Philips and Grundig, have since followed. Sony’s wide-screens range in price from £900 for the WSl series to S2JBBQ far the most expensive of the WS3 series. Sony also offers a portable wide-screen set the KV-ieWTl, at £400 for use with video games. Games By far the most dynamic area of the electronics market this year has been video games. The market lost momentum during the past two years as consumers waited for the new generation of powerful 32-bit systems to crane on sale. Sales have picked up with a ven- geance since their launch. The mam focus of interest has been the Sega Saturn, launched this summer, and Sony PlayStation, which was introduced this autumn. Both offer faster games and more vivid visuals than the old 8-bit and 16-bit games systems and both are priced at £299. So far the PlayStation seems to have an edge over the Sat- urn in sales terms. Some shops sold out in tiie PlayStation's first weekend on sale. Both Sony and Sega are shipping more systems - and software - into the UK before Christmas, but shops are still running low on stock. Camcorders Sharp has led the field in the camcorder market following its introduction of the miniatur- ised viewing screens that show what is being filmed. But Pana- sonic and Sony are fighting back with the launch of the next wave of digital cam- corders. • These camcorders offer “videophiles", at the very top of the amateur photographic market, digital technology, and superior editing facilities and picture quality. The Sony SCR- VX700 and DCR-VX1000 sen for £2,800 and £3,500; whereas Panasonic has replaced its award winning standard cam- corder, the NV-S90, with the NV-S77B and NV-S88B costing £1,000 and £L200. Audio The audio market has become a minefield as manufac turers have launched new formats. So far, neither Sony's MiniDisc, nor the digital compact cas- sette (DCC) from Philips and Panasonic have become estab- lished. But the consumer electronics companies do, at least, seem to have learnt from the experi- ence and most of their new products now integrate the new formats with existing sound systems. Phili ps’ FW68 hi-fi mini sys- tem combines a DCC deck with analogue cassette decks and a CD player for £500, which means that you can still play traditional cassettes and CDs on it even if you do not have many DCCs. Similarly it has launched a hi-fi version of its CD-i, an interactive compact disc system - the £600 FW360i home entertainment machine. Integration has also influ- enced the latest new music medium, CD-Plus, which is designed to fill the excess capacity on audio-CDs with sounds, data and video images. The record companies, which have had little success in per- suading consumers to buy musical CD-Roms, have ensured that CD-Plus discs can be played on CD players like ordinary discs, but can also be played on the CD-Rom drives of personal computers. Another more discreet devel- opment is a recordable version of the compact disc. The first recordable CD systems came on sale in 1990. albeit at a price of £4,000. Prices have since fallen and the systems are now used by professional musicians and by companies that need to make copies of CD-Roms. Philips is selling a CDD2000 recordable CD system for £1,300 and the price is expected to be halved by the end of next year. Digital Video Disc If 1995 was the year of the 32- bit games system, the electron- ics market in 1996 seems sure to be dominated by the launch of the digital video disc. These systems, which combine the functions of video cassettes. audio-CDs and computer discs, are seen as the industry's next big product The hitch is that, until recently, the world’s leading consumer electronics compa- nies seemed set on a collision course by launching two com- peting DVD formats, as Sony and Panasonic did with the Betamax and VHS for the video cassette. The industry has been seek- ing a compromise since August If one is reached, it is hoped that the first DVD systems will be on sale in Japan before next Christmas and launched in the US and Europe the following year. Our designers will work with you lo tailor a traditional pattern to your requirements or create a totally netv design, lour carpet or mg will be hand-made to meet your specific needs in any shape , aise and combination of shades. Because of the individual nature of our carpels it is advisable lo make an appointment to risit our New Bond Street Showroom. Telephone: 0171 629 0626 Fax: 0171 409 2969 STOCKWELL CARPETS STOCKWELL ClKPETH LX!*. 3rd Floor, 51/52 New Bono Street, London WIY I) BY. VIII WEEKEND FT financial times WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25/NOVEMBER 26 1995 FOOD AND DRINK * So cheeky, these chaps Philippa Davenport with some more ideas for foodie presents C hampagne and caviar will never make as memorable a present for the chocaholic as a high-rise stack of favourite chocolate bars. The largesse implied by a dozen tins of top quality ancho- vies will make the anchovy addict's heart sing, giving plea- sure out of all proportion to the cost involved. The spirits of Italophiles will soar at the sight of a kilo hunk of fine Parmigiano cheese. Below are one or two foods which might be worth consid- ering this Christmas. I have given suppliers I judge to be particularly good, and who boast the added advantage of making doorstep deliveries. Some of you may decide to treat yourselves in the firm belief that every cook deserves a present for their Christmas larder. smoked eel fillets costs £&50 inc p&p. Two packs or more to the same address cost £8 each inc p&p. Whole smoked eel costs £&50 per lb and the aver- age eel weighs lVilb. Orders arid inquiries to Brown & Forrest, Thorney , Laogport, Somerset TAIO ODR. Tel: 01458-251520. Fax: 01458-253475. SMOKED EEL Good smoked eel is a great del- icacy and Michael Brown, of Brown & Forrest is. simply, Britain’s best speciality pro- ducer. His eels ore beautifully fla- voured and succulent, firm- flesbed and as rich as butter. Served with generous wedges of juicy lemon and black pep- per to temper the richness, or crime fimche well laced with grated horseradish or mustard, smoked eel makes a magnifi- cent alternative to the spooked salmon that has become a Christmas Day cliche in many households. It is excellent too as part of fishy /jots d 'oeuvres, and I par- ticularly like to make a real meal of it with a warm potato and wilted watercress salad dressed with mustardy vinai- grette or a parsley and caper salsa verde. Brown's eels are freshly hot- smoked to order, vacuum packed and chilled before dis- patch. This means they can be sent by first-class post without loss oT quality during winter months. Fillets are posted in padded envelopes small enough to slip through a letterbox so it is not essential for the recipient to be at home to receive them. Whole eels - simplicity itself to skin and bone, and even more highly recommended than fillets - arrive packed in cardboard tubes clearly marked "perishable’’. Instruc- tions inside each parcel explain that the product should be refrigerated on receipt (or fro- zen for long storage) and Is best eaten within four to five days. Specific delivery dates can be requested and gift cards (your own or theirs) can be Included with orders intended as pres- ents. Last orders for delivery by Christmas must be received by Brown & Forrest no later than Monday December 18. One pack (227g/8oz) of BATH CHAPS AND TRADITIONAL BACON Wiltshire is traditionally famous for fine pork products. Bath Chaps among them, a local speciality still remem- bered with greedy pleasure by many over the age of 40. Bath Chaps are a rare treat today but still made, I am happy to say. by one small pro- ducer in the region: Roger Keen, his wife, Rosemary, and daughter. Charlotte, of San- dridge Farm. Their pigs are raised and cured in a time hon- oured manner. A Bath Chap is made from the cheek of a pig, cured, cooked and coated with bread- crumbs litre a miniature ham It Is juicy and full of flavour - because the cheek of tradi- tional breeds of pig has a good ratio of fat to lean, and fat of course, equals flavour. Bath Chaps are small Oust the right size for single people and couples, for whom even a half ham is just too much of a good thing) and they are agree- ably cheap. Weighing an average llb- lVSlb each, boneless and there- fore without waste, they are a bargain delicacy at £2^0 each. Sandrldge Farm sells them vacuum-packed for refrigera- tion with clearly marked eat-by dates but they can be frozen for longer storage. Sandridge Farm also pro- duces a range of bams and proper bacon madp as it should be, not the ersatz sort that exudes white pus as it cooks. The bacon comes in 500g packs (just over Hb) and is available smoked or green. Prices per pack range from £2 JO for green streaky bacon to £3.56 for smoked back. Normally, rashers are cut medium-thick, but orders for four packs or more can be sliced as thick as the customer wishes, or very thin indeed, as I like it best (the equivalent of No2 on an old-fashioned bacon slicer), so the fat frazzles and frills deliciously as it cooks. Sandridge makes a flat deliv- ery charge of £10 per delivery address, irrespective of weight Deliveries are by overnight courier as requested. Christ- mas deliveries must be ordered by December 9. Telephone or write for an order form. Orders are not taken over the -telephone, nor are Visa or credit cards accepted. Sandridge Farm, Bromham, Chippenham, Wilt- shire SN15 2JL. Tel: 01380- 850304. David Donico tt : chef to a nation's legtatators Itarar Catering for political whims Nicholas Lander meets the man in charge of 90 chefs and nine kitchens at the House of Commons D avid Dorricott, executive chef to the House of Commons, is in a unique position for a London cook - that of not having to win new customers for his business. He is in overall charge of the Commons’ 90 chefs and nine kitchens and, to a large extent, has a- captive clientele. Origi- nally designed to feed 2,000 a day, the Commons catering operation currently feeds 4^00 (a total of 928,000 meals last year). And the customer profile could not be wider, from secu- rity and cleaning staff to the prime minister and visiting heads of state. However, Dorricott says his mission is simple: “1 want to feed them all better. I want these kitchens to be as profes- sionally attractive as the build- ings are architecturally stun- ning so that we can recruit the best chefs and make these res- taurants a showcase for Britain.'’ After 15 months in tbs job Dorricott feels he has accom- plished barely 10 per cent of what needs to be done. He used to be executive chef at a top London hotel and admits that he found working at the Commons a very differ- ent experience. Dorricott says he has had nothing but support from Colin Shepherd, MP, chairman of the Commons catering committee, to whom he and Sue Harrison, director of catering services, report. However, when he arrived he found a very unen- terprising outlook in the kitch- ens. “My predecessor had been here for over 20 years, his No.2 and No.3 just as long. The average length of employment for the chefs was over 15 years. 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Our award winning hallmarked sterling silver cutlery comes in 20 timeless, elegant designs and we can supply sets of any size. Send for details today. Freepost the coupon, phone or fax us. Or if you prefer, visit our London showroom or Sheffield manufactory where you can watch us make your cutlery. P«rc Strwt. Sheffield M SLL. J-.ur.- nU4 24* 712* Li-Jifi 4 Growwwr Sued Wl. Infr. Bond Sneer l PHD S E 0 1 1 4 2 4 5 5 9 X 4 j \ FREEPOST • J nurtf Cialn>. VREEPCViT. .ShrfirM, M 7%Z { i i.Yn Xtr.ir.il Pine* mv hill tUi.nb fmu SKtiutg Sihn Cutlery. I I 77-i.- Vw i • i.is.r ■ l 1 i i i i i i « Rici @ Gii Gf. NMSffUtOK { JW.wfr ■ new wanted to come and work here because they thought all we served was overcooked roast beef and soggy vegeta- bles." Some of the dishes in Hie Churchill Room, the most upmarket rest aur ant , for MFs only, testify to die change: Cor- nish crab cakes; a leek terrine; squab pigeon with risotto; maize fed chicken with bubble and squeak. For the State Opening of Parliament this month the Members and Strangers Cafeteria served car- rot and coriander soup and poached salmon with dill sauce. Menus in the other restau- rants included chargrilled autumn vegetables with a red pimento dressing, and roasted rib of black Angus beef with a salt crust Dorricott says: “At 9am every day I have a meeting with all my sous chefs, some- thing that was never done before. I found that there were plenty of chefs here who were frustrated, who wanted to improve but couldn't" Dorricott took advantage of his professional contacts and sent chefs for work experience at Boodles, The Ritz and to Gary Rhodes at The Green- house. Slowly, Dorricott hired new staff, including chefs Laurence Colmer and Nick Doyle, who have both cooked for Inter -continental hotels. “Whan I took over there was not even a market sheet to order the next day's produce. It was all done on bits of paper.” Systems were installed to con- trol and upgrade the quality of fresh produce and Dorricott was given permission to use the Speaker's kitchen, used twice a week at most for train- ing his staff during the 14 weeks a year when there Is no parliamentary business. Thai it was time to tackle the MPs. “There was a com- ments book but it was really a complaints and suggestions book which gives you some idea of how we cbefS were thought ot I asked for a new phone / fax so that I could place all my orders hut this was turned down. These phones, 1 was told, were reserved for members and officers of the House but eventually I got one. They thought chefs could not be managers, that we stirred soup with one hand and had a bottle of beer in the other.” The showdown came a year ago over vegetables. The kitch- ens used to offer 12 different vegetables, at least three of them frozen, to accompany any of the main dishes. “It was chaos. In the restaurant that Uproar ensued when the choice of vegetables was reduced from 12 to four. One MP became very irate. would serve SO a night, a table of four MPs would come in and order individually because they were paying individually. The kitchen would start their orders but others joined the table. The first MPs would have to go off so they would call for their main course and this system meant that the kitchen was struggling with 1,000 individual vegetable orders. You could not control it let alone cook the vegetables property." Instead, Dorricott decided to offer four fresh vegetables a day to ensure they were cor- rectly cooked. Uproar ensued. One MP threatened to ask for the chefs dismissal Finally, when the head waiter reported that there was me particularly irate MP, Dorricott offered to break con- vention and 0) into the dfrrmg room. “It was Nicholas S names, MP, Minister of Defence, whom I knew because I had cooked for him when he was Minister of Agriculture and we were promoting British food in Paris. T explained exactly what we were doing and why - and he understood. The communica- tion here has been terrible. “When Betty Boothroyd, the Speaker, was organising a din- ner I suggested menus and offered to cook them for her to taste. I had suggested carrots as one vegetable but the mes- sage came baric that she did not like them. I cooked them anyway and found out that she loved carrots, she just did not like badly cooked carrots!" It was just before lunch when Dorricott took me on a tour of the maze that consti- tutes the Commons’ kitchens and dining rooms. "Three weeks after I started the catering committee asked my opinion. I replied that I needed more time - at least until I could find my way around - only to be told by one member that he had been here 12 years and still got lost" What I saw and ate, was cer- tainly evidence of the pursuit of excellence. Upstairs two chefs were carving perfectly cooked, pink legs of lamb for a lunch for 60. The smells from the kitchen serving the 1,000 meals a day in the Members and Strangers Cafeteria were encouraging. My lunch in the Churchill Room, a warm chicken salad followed by a seared fillet of sea bass with potatoes Anna , was excellent So were the prices: £&95 for a plate of Forman’s smoked salmon; monkfish at £7.80; oxtail at £7.50 and fillet steak at £8.50. The refreshment department's financial goal er cent to make a return of 5 per on the cost of food and wages. It manages to achieve this by mixing the core business of feeding MPs and Commons' staff with the increasingly profitable use of its dining rooms and terraces for ban- queting and parties for outsid- ers. Last year banqueting income was up by £117,000. The refreshment depart- ment’s turnover for 1994/95 was £3.8m. This includes the two souvenir shops which take £20,000 a day in December sell- ing House of Commons sherry, whisky and port It exceeds its expected rate of return, hand- ing over the surplus to the Treasury as a partial contribu- tion to the £17m improvements being carried out to the kitch- ens and dining rooms. . Dorricott feels he has mad e good progress but as to the future he says: “After the next election there mil certainly be a younger body of MPs who will have eaten out more and therefore be more demanding. “Records show that when- ever there has been a Labour majority our banqueting busi- ness has suffered as they seem to entertain less. 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And there is to reason why Britons, franc prt permitting, should not join them now the Eurostar has made Paris to London rail travel so convenient In the run-up to Christmas a trip to the French capital in search of market produce and jjfr a good lunch has a certain appeal Even though the city has lost its wholesale trade at les Halles - it has gone to Run- gis near Orly airport - its abat- toirs (La Villette and Vaugi- rard] and its foire au jam bon (food fair), it has more retail food markets now than it did in the last century. Colourful Parisian markets have a life of their own: they appear twice or three times a week in each neighbourhood. Not all districts have kept a real market place, such as Auteuil (16th arrondissement) or Place Monge (5th), so stalls have often settled in the streets. At Montparnasse the market is fortunately situated on the central reservation of the bou- levard Edgar Quinet, under acacia trees. In the 15th arxon- dissement. in areas such as rue St Charles or rue de la Conven- tion. shopping is less conve- nient as the market is split on opposite sides of the street But finding one’s way on narrow pavements crowded with peo- ple at least has an authentic ..charm. 5* Some streets are rightly renowned for their food speci- alisation. The following, located within a walking dis- tance of an open-air market, are the good addresses to go to (except Mondays); ■ Rue Montorgueil with rue Montmartre, near les Halles, is what is left from le ventre de Paris. It is still a good place for oysters, mediterranean prod- ucts. fruit hampers (starting at FFr200 plus delivery, a special- ity of les Vergers St Eustache), and for the patissier Stohrer and its famous "puis d amour". Nearby rue Montmartre retains two or three good sup- pliers or good foie gras, pdtes and hams. ■ The sipping rue Mouffetard (5th arrondissement) is worth the trip not only for sight- seeing. Rue de Bud-rue de Seine (6th arrondissement) has a style of its own, with its caffe, two delicious patisseries (Bonbonniere de Bud and La Vieille France), delicatessen and flower shops. Two minutes away in rue Dauphine are two sausage specialists, Couesnon No. 30) and Claude Charles (No. 10) offer an e x t r aordinary range of black and white pad- dings for Christinas. ■ Rue de Levis and rue Pon- celet (17th arrondissement) are among the best areas for food shopping on the right bank. Pop in to Allfesse at 13 rue Poncelet for top quality cheese. In Paris each market seller has a different way of captur- ing the passer-by’s attention, with typical accents, expres- sions and calls such as “AUons-y Messieurs-Dames", a reminder of the 19th century “shouts of Paris". To get the best choice and the freshest products, get up early. Think about starting your shopping at 7am. To get good bargains, arrive late, around L20pm, just before stallholders pack up. They often get rid of . their surplus stock at reduced prices then. Self-service is becoming usual for fruit and vegetables stalls and, as queuing is not a Frenchman's cup of tea, expect a joyful chaos at peak hours. Most fruits and vegetables come from the wholesale mar- ket at Rungis bat it is still pos- sible to find sellers coining from the countryside with their own home-grown pro- duce. This is particularly the case cm Sundays at the organic food market boulevard Raspail (6th arrondissement), which is the place to go to for the best range of salads, aromatic herbs, forgotten apple or vege- table varieties, or for additive free sausages and special breads. The rest is often over- priced. If greens give an attractive look to a market, the fish and cheese on offer is usually a pre- cious indication of the level of quality. The range of fish and shell- fish in rue St Charles or boule- vard Edgar Quinet, for exam- ple. is really superb, with lobster currently selling at FFr150 per kilo, before prices From the melting snows of the Andes, a warm red wine from Bodegas Trappiche. Around tlu* province of Mendoza m dicnvhvd vincyanL irrigated the perfect climate UgMjm. . , RtfitwnvJ wine maker Peter Bnghi his hkf idl'd ihr Mottles. h.in-«cd in cool l u, .in lv fait* "it* 1 Cabernet Sauvignon from tk warmer area oj Sama Rosa. 1 y rth .vrfbrti and H of red berry and phmt ikiv. ur\ it v u *>*» exemplifies win. o»*' ajpm, Saimharp berate Sujvnwirfcet 'Vine Merdninr of me r V.wkiWe ninnm store*. J3-49 Sainsbury “v 3 A* A h , S' 7 ^ d. ... £ h * ■■ • - The fish market in the n» Gambatta rise in the run-up to Christ- mas, or whole coquille St Jac- ques at FFr100 for 3kg. For exotic and beautifully coloured fish, the African market of Chateau Rouge is worth a visit In summer, women in tradi- tional African dress also sell warm sweetcom in smoking Ordinary cheese is rarely good value in open-air mar- kets. But there is generally at least one good seller of cheese on each market The Champignon de Paris is strangely not always at its best on Parisian open-air markets, except when sold by special- ists, but wild mushrooms, such as cep and chanterelle, are freely available in season. Locals care deeply far their covered markets and have occasionally fought hard to keep them alive. Many of these A perk T wo new addresses for jaded City palates: the first is Glad wins, a 120-sea ter r wdui mmt, specialising tn modem British cooking, at Mhistw Court Mincing Lane, EC3 (0171-444 0004). Many may remember Peter Gladwin as the man who catered for the VE Day celebrations in Hyde Park, London, earlier thus year. Prices are £24.50 far two courses, £30 for three, inclusive of unlimited mineral water. Open Monday to Friday, lunch times only. The second Is Cyrus Todlwala’s restaurant at 16 Prescot Street El (0171-488 9242), just south of Aldgate, the new home of Cafe Spice Namaste. Lunch aid dinner is saved from Monday to Friday with dinner only on Saturday. Nicholas Lander . have been protected for their architectural interest. The famous marche St Germain near St Germain des Pres (Vi&ne) has been beautifully rebuilt but the true Parisian will tell you it is no longer as lively as it used to be. The spirit of the place has gone. The largest covered market is Les Batignolles (17 th arron- dissement) with 68 different stalls, followed by the marchfe St Quentin (near the gare du Nord), with 55. Smaller in size are the marche Secretan (19th arrondissement) and the marchfe d’AUgre-Beauvau (12th arrondissement) cherished by Parisians for their picturesque nature as wen as reasonable prices. For good food, good bargains, or just to feel like a native Parisian, market shopping is worthwhile. Cognac A catholic love of spirit Giles MacDonogh in the Charente C ognac and Jamac are half of the 19th century, at : the twin poles of the time when rival eights fron brandy business. Jar- Cognac and Jamac were racim nac is quiet and Prat- another down the Charenti tejrffatwte •' lies-' marches • Covered markets □ Marchd Saint Germain, 3 ter, me MabOon, 75006 Paris □ Marchd Saint Quentin: 85 bfe boulevard de Magenta, 75010 Paris . . _ : D Marchd Beauvaud-crAUgre; between rue cTABgre and roe de Cotta, 75012 Paris . C March* des BatjgnoOee, 96 bis rue Liunercier, 75017 Paris ' □ MwcM4ocrMm; S^anmie Sacritai, 75Ct9.Paris Opensah markets' / □ Marchd Monge, place Monge, 75005 PaHs -(Wednesday, Friday, Sunday) a Organic food market. boulevard Raspail, between roe du-' ;Cherche-MB(fi and iue de Rennes, 7500B Paris (Sunday) □ Mandid Edgar Quinet;JM.v '• **' *>* .it- Vi- iSAfrV. J j, r ; ;V ill •: 111.: . 1 - rilr: u«i -i E r Midun*? IV -11-: | . Vplj ( *T* -‘f l> 1 •< ^■7 i,;,. \ -. ^ r.i if: , I- . 4 lcadi„.., . ttanlifv.. 2?* m vr EL 11 iii: 5 Hi ;; 2^;,,. / T’nuir. , 5'-:- • ?** ■T-. . ^d?u.. W 11 n M.:. .. a .. trabe Adam Hopkins Phimotah-Sanlander and by Brittany Perries 01752-221321). m back (tel: ‘■‘hr. '“'Ul r .. ■ ■ ti\r. ll -l i... y Vi 1 .C” 1 "' V N • .. TL 1 v* ; Sv-'.'". hi . is’. • JSr Sh ..V K""'- C? , ■ V' .'u: V.>. T Leaping whales caught in the tourist he singing, leapin g humpback whales that come to breed in tropical Pacific . . , waters off the . coasts of Colombia and Ecua- dor have started their 8,000km journey back to Antarctica. This year more people than - ever before enjoyed their aerial .antics; and while researchers are anxious to provide greater protection for the humpback j population, it appears to be . recovering very slowly from the, effects of commercial whaling. During the northern summer .the whales feed in Antarctica , on tiny shrimp-like krill, gulp- ing in enormous mouthfuls of water and food, then forcing Ithe water out again through their baleen plates. By the time they leave the icy polar seas, on their northward migration, .the whales' blubber is 15cm- .20cm thick. This was when s^wy whalers chose to hunt them down, at strategic points .en route to the tropics such as in the Cook Straits of New Zea- land. , ■ Unfortunately for the showy, slow-moving humpbacks, they were extremely vulnerable. Whether gathered in groups on their feeding grounds or travel- ling fairly predictable paths or breeding in warm, shallow .waters close to shore, they • were easy prey. Although r humpback oil was at first Ipbs f valuable than sperm whale oil, h demand rose suddenly in the u early 20th century after it r became one of the main ingre- I dients in margarine .. By the time whaling nations ■•began to introduce controls in * the 1960s, the humpback popu- lation had been reduced to less than one-tenth of its original ' number. r The same behaviour that once allowed them to be har- jpooned so readily makes h humpbacks particularly attrac- tive to whale watchers who 'seek them today. The strategy ois much the same too; scan the sea for a misty blow and head full tilt for the spot The exrite- ,ment that greets each si ghting -is every bit as strong as it ^must have been in the old •days. But once the whales are within telephoto range, the . parallel ends. .. “It's a gradual process, turn- ing the whales into a different kind of resource," says Fern- The behaviour that once made humpbacks easy prey is attracting a new kind of hunter, writes Sarita Kendall Turning the whales into a different kind of resource: a young humpback off the Colombian coast undo Felix, director of the Femm, an Ecuadorean research and education founda- tion focusing on marine mam- mals. “Humpbacks are ideal for this. They’re always here in certain months and the boats do not have to go very far out And, of course, they are spec- tacular." The Femm runs whale watching trips from Puerto Lopez, a fishing port easily reached from Guayaquil. With the support of the UK-based Whale and Dolphin Conserva- tion Society, it has been train- ing guides and lobbying to get regulations approved. Eight open boats, most operated by local fishermen, take people out to see the whales and to explore the island of La Plata, where there are blue-footed boobies and other species from the Galapagos Mauds. A further 700km north, humpbacks also congregate off the coast of Colombia. Here Lilian Florez Gonzalez, a marine biologist who started research on the whales nearly 10 years ago, is deciphering their movements and behav- iour. The underside of an adult humpback’s broad tail flukes are the equivalent of a h uman fingerprint: each is different and, if good enough photo- graphs nan be taken as the whale dives and shows its tail markings, the animal is identi- fied for life. Out in a small, bucking launch with huge, smooth, dark backs sliding through the waves alongside, Florez is single-minded: “The tail, the tafir * she shouts to researchers standing on the thwarts with still and video cameras. More than 500 humpbacks have been identified so far in Colombian waters. The pic- tures are catalogued and exchanged with other research groups: 12 of the Colombian photos have been matched in Antarctica and at least two in Ecuador. But more than three- quarters of the whales identi- fied by Florez and her team have not been re-sighted off Colombia. Have they gone to other breeding areas off Brazil, Africa or Australia? Could there be a cross-over between northern and southern hemi- sphere humpback populations? The questions multiply but the answers tekp time. “What I find so interesting is that you have to work for years before you can even start saying something valid about the behaviour of whales,” says Florez, whose studies are sup- ported by the Colombian scien- tific research organisation. Col- ei encias. The sounds made by hump- backs are extraordinary. For 15 minutes we floated above a musical moaning so loud it could be heard without the hydrophone that Florez uses to record whale chirrups, snores and haunting choruses. Another male purred like a lion for over an hour. The sing- ers are supposedly all solitary males, and their songs are thought to be linked to mating and communication. “One strange thing is that despite all the research on humpbacks in different parts of the world, no one seems to have seen the whales copulat- ing. Does it happen deep under water, or very quickly, or at night?” says Florez. Humpbacks got their name from the humped dorsal fins and the way they arch when diving. Their scientific name is Megaptera novaeangliae, which translates roughly as net “large-winged New Englan- der". They were first identified off the coast of New England, where they still “perform” in summer before tens of thou- sands of people. When a 30-ton humpback leaps out of the water with white flippers fly- ing, it does indeed appear large- winged. Although the size of the adult whales is one of the fasci- nations, the playful six-metre calves are carious and enter- taining with their floppy, inex- perienced jumps. Even hard- ened whalers, who took advantage of the mother-calf bond to obtain a few extra bar- rels of oil, wrote with tender- ness of the way dying mothers tried to protect their young to the last. Often a third whale will escort a female and her calf, shielding them from other humpbacks, predatory killer whales and boats. Since 1966 humpbacks have been protected from hunting in all but a few places and because of this scientists assume that the population is growing, if only gradually. But other problems have developed, including pollution, increasing boat traffic and the use of synthetic fishing nets. Humpbacks seeking to give birth in quiet, safe waters off the Colombian coast are in the middle of an important ship- ping lane and close to a naval base. “Of course, it's a good thing that the whales are in a pro- tected sanctuary in Antarctica. But look what is happening to their habitat here around Malaga Bay, with the tree- cutting, the sedimentation, the new hotels and the port devel- opment,” says Florez. As in Ecuador, the Yubarta Founda- tion started by Florez has dis- tributed ground rules to boats in the area. Whale watching at Malaga Bay began last year and is proving so popular that biolo- gist Roberto Hardo, one of the organisers, is already worried about the numbers. The occa- sional school of dolphins, as well as colonies of pelicans and frigate birds, add to the plea- sure. Florez and Pardo agree that ideally the area should be a marine reserve where ships have to make a small detour and people can see the whales without disturbing them. nhoiiut 1 Eastern rhapsody Michael Wigan looks behind the extraordinary facades of Prague T he best thing about Prague is not arrival or departure. But the airport authorities have decided, inspirationally, to proride travellers with free showers. They are hot and spa- cious and the warning that .everything is out of order keeps others away. The perfec- tion of this experience, in a country where buildings are over-heated to melting point, was not marred, in fact rather . improved, by discovering as 1 left l had been in the Ladies. Cleanliness is an issue in Prague. Shop assistants, pre- sumably for cost reasons, do not use deodorant, let alone scent. It cuts short one’s 4 peregrinations through the ‘.glass shops. Whole streets are devoted to Bohemian glass, either densely - cut, or in modem attentuated shapes verging on kitsch. In an .emporium of many glass cre- ations a British woman cast!- .gated a bemused assistant about the lack of an elusive red glass. Around her were cobalt blue Byzantine-style goblets, . abided round the rim. glasses Tn amber, laurel-green and -claret, .ill but the particular rod she craved. Her husband [stood stolidly by. in mute sup- ,porL . Prague is not used to tne .shrill self-righteousness of con- 'sumerisni. Assistants dawdle, or walk joff in sultry self-absorption, without replying (perhaps an overhams from the nullity^ : Czechoslovakia's extreme form of Stalinism). When a shopper ‘presses tln> threshold the piped 'music is amplified. •Wright, was earned by popular .acclaim to league CasUe. , Shop windows whuh £5” too dirtv to Fee through tato Iwn cleaned; the few M spread beyond the grime. never for sale, hate ■replaced with consumer dura &2S KSjgr amnvuUcd as Europe s mas*" jffd von see n Strahov Monastery Gate (18th century} in Prague Baroque. The Czech Republic inclines to architectural protec- tion. A Shopkeeper complained that his window could not be j-iyypd up. Unlike in most cities architectural merit start s at ground level, not from the first floor. Praguers, as they are unhap- pfly termed, have a strangely equivocal, almost disdainful altitude to the changes. I asked a Czech about It. “You see they and I too, are pessimistic. We like the downside." It comes from 1.000 years in which Czechs have seldom run their own affairs, the last occa- sion being for the presidency of Tomas Masaryk. who died in 1937 - just before Hitler entered the Sudetenijmd in north-western Czechoslovakia. Apart from being the corn* try of Smetana. Semtexi and the Skoda motor car. theCzecfa Republic also produced Kafka. Administration is still some- shat Kiiftaaqne, «lto “£51. & iSWbine. exhausting - of getting ba family property. Phipps says only 10 formerly important Czech families were able to sat- isfy the new government's cri- teria of proof of ownership, and continued residency during the traumatic upheavals during and after the war. Having negotiated her restitution she gets tax relief in recognition of her huge financial and physi- cal commitme nt Restoration of the castle she lives in, Castokmce, is daunt- ing. .The building is square, enclosing a courtyard; its housed space is the size of a small village. Thirty workers go to and fro for 12 hours a day. A rose garden has been set out, oak doors have filled gaping door frames, and much of the mis-restoratkm by state officials in the former culture department has been reversed. The hardest problem, she says, is teamwork. People are not acclimatised to taking responsibility and unaccus- tomed to working towards an end capable of fall accomplish- ment In tbs (basil Republic citi- zens are emerging from a pro- longed sleep, the oblivion of communism.' Prague has - ■"T — — T become a city of caffe life; the atmosphere is 1960s. Young couples converse excitedly in cellar bars. There is a film set unreality. The sanitised old fortified city centre of HradCany is virtually Tintin-esque. The pal- ace guards talk as they march, a march that resembles an arm-swinging walk. There is the chasm between a people who seem uniformly levelled, earning minuscule wages by western standards, and their imposing physical heritage, unbombed during the second world war. and fundamen- tally untrammelled for 600 years. A university town since 1348, with a student population of 10,000 at the start of the 15th century, Prague is still a place where intellect dominates brawn. One cab driver regaled us with a detailed and rapid 1,000-year historiral sketch of bis n o r m try, priding up, in Only a mildly inflected tone, with Chamberlain and Daladier’s attempt to deal with Hitler by offering over Czechoslovakia as a placatory titbit. Czechoslo- vakia was the subject, after all, of Chamberlain's infam ous remark, “a far away country” rrwvtflTTring “a people of whom we lrnri w nothing". We know more now. Last year more than 100m visitors crossed Czecb borders, a rise of 27 per cent on 1993. Of the non- neighbours, Italians, Dutch and British were the most numerous. Of all east Euro- pean capitals. Prague has proved the most powerful mag- net. This has brought an onslaught of petty crime. Two Norwegians we met were robbed on successive days: once de-walleted in a disco, then subjected to a Prague- style money exchange on the street - top notes real, sand- wiched ones forgeries. One of the most bizarre reac- tions of Prague taxi drivers to bad experiences is to line their passenger seats with electric wires. Disagreeable customers get a few volts in their bottoms at the touch of a button. It is said that in Prague the new rich are taxi drivers and waitresses, which makes the possibility of being electro- cuted while paying for the ride, even less acceptable. ■ Visitors can take apartments in Castalooice Castle for a week at a time. Contact Diana Phipps, Castolovice Zamek, Castokarice. 51750, Czech Repub- lic. Tel 00 42 444 21729. 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But when he is not gadding around Gaucholand he runs a bed and breakfast business at his home in England's South Downs between Midhurst and Pet- worth. And be does not mind dogs. Which was the main reason we had chosen his place because, between the four of us. we had three of them. The plan was to go walkles - east one day and south the next To give each outing a goal (in addition to working up a thirst! we had agreed on culture - a Roman villa and an open-air museum. Just a mite or so from our accom- modation the track rose steeply up the scarp face of the chalk - from the ridge-top the views were splen- did. northwards out over the Weald. The word itself is no misnomer - it is Old English in Origin and means "wooded district". Despite centuries of cutting trees - to make clearings for villages and farms, to build ships and houses from the might)' oaks, to provide charcoal to fuel the iron industry - it is still very much a wooded scene. From the top, the Ordnance Sur- vey map gave the height as 233 metres, or 764ft Immediately below us was the village of Heyshott whose most famous sou was Rich- ard C-obden. bom there in the year before Trafalgar. His great achieve- ments were the promotion of free trade (no doubt making him the patron saint of all thermal under- wear exporters) and the abolition of the Com Laws. His seven-year struggle to achieve the latter made his reputation but ruined him financially. A public subscription was raised for him in 1817 and with this he bought the house where he had been bom. He lived there for the rest of his life. The well-marked South Downs Way follows the northern edge of the line of chalk hills . We branched Early music was being played on early instruments in the early buildings off of it to head for a public house in Sutton. Just before the village, the path went straight through, the middle of a held of peas - ripe, succulent, tasty - a perfect pre-pint snack. Signor Roman villa has been open to the public for nearly 200 years. It has been in the ownership of the ram* family far all of that time - it was the current manager's great-great-great-great-grandfather George Tupper who discovered the site while ploughing in 181 L The mosaics are some of the fin- est in the country and date mainly from the 4 th century. Today the col- ours are still bright - the small stones used to make up the pictures and patterns are local. Limestone and chalk for white, Purbeck mar- ble from Dorset for blue and grey, and sandstone providing a whole range of colours including yellow, orange and red. The floors undulate gently - having settled over the centuries - and are protected from the elements by thatched roofs. The Romans of Bignor had no need for thermal underwear. The miserable English winters were made bearable by underfloor heat- ing in the living quarters. Even the changing rooms were heated. In the one adorned by the serpent-haired Medusa, chid 1 of the Gorgons. togas were whipped off before entering the sauna room - or caidarfum - adjacent to a heated plunge bath. The next day we toiled up the north face again but from then on it was all downhill to Singleton. The way led through beech trees that had been planted 100 years ago. A stoat galvanised the dogs when ft shot across the path ahead. Fallow deer crashed through the under- growth. Green woodpeckers laughed- A sparrowhawk quartered. Orchids spiked the tuit The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum has rescued more than 85 buildings since it first opened in 1967. Farm buildings, a toll cottage, a water mill, granaries, a smithy - all saved from decay or demolition and re-erected on the 40-acre site. The dog owners loved it, the owned not so much as they had to go on their leads and were forbidden from 1 • r '■*•>**- i*- - ■ .. ••• ... . .XX- % • & . -■ - . • 'Xx'xx.v^-x.- . -v. x . *■ - - . _ - -rt. xx:i^ ; ■■■■■■ ■■■ • X • - - - - v'X >.• -- — - - : -V X ' ' '• v%X v .,., . ■gZ&X : T £- v "Vxx^:L "’- ; rx . ■ - $r 'xxfx: ^ffex. : ^X x" Avi X'ife ■£} ^ ^ XX "u> • -x"'" ", ‘•5>4--;v -Sv- .iif '• t; ^ fot ‘ ' u ’ M: v. ' X xxx % x^Jix|r-- ■iGC. 7 *v* • 'j'. - K! ' :: ' • £ il’r'Jl Txx • ' • it??;- ^vrr-.Vor'rtfL i'.XS 'X'' i hi the chang ing room: Medusa, chief of the Gorgons, at the Bignor Roman v*a going to the source of the bast smells - the working water mill grinding the grain into flour. The museum has special attrac- tions which remind you of the time before switches and shopping trol- lies. A charcoal maker’s camp in a woodland clearing, candle making, food preserved by smoking. Power supplied by animals, wind and water. Cottage gardens with real vegetables growing in them and straw skeps with real bees to-ing and fro-tng. The day we visited, early music was being played on early instru- ments in the early bufldings. I was drawn to a consort of recorder play- ers. The five musicians were playing an Elizabethan dance in the hp)i of Bayleaf farmstead. The half-timbered building had been saved from drowning - it was donated by East Surrey Water Com- pany when they bnflt Bough Beech Reservoir in the late 1960 b. The dog and I sat an the rush matted floor. A fire burnt in the hearth - the music mingled with the smoke before seeping out through the gaps between the tfles abova. - ■ Information Accommodation : Eansunod, Heyshott , Nr ASdhurst, West Sussex, GU2S ODA. Tel:. 01 730-813836. - Proprietor Rupert Nathan. Bed and breakfast £16 per night Dogs welcome. - ■ Weald and Doumland museum, Singleton, Chichester West Sussex P018 QBU. Tel: 01243*11848. Fax 01243-8LL475. ' Winter opening Non 1 to Feb 29, Wednesdays. .Saturdays and Sundays only from limn to 4pm (except December 2S to January 8 when it is open daily 11am to 4pm). From March litis open daily Ham to 6pm. ■ Bignor Roman VHJa, Bignor, Pul- borough. West Sussex, RH30 1PBL Tel: 017988&259. Fax 01798-869478. Open March to October. 10am to 5pm (closed Mondays except Bank Holidays). ■ Southern Early Music Fanan - contact John Dtbdm 01243-781964 or Sheila Wood 01278475968. s GRAND HOTEL ZERMATTERH0F V SWITZERLAND It's snowing already in St Moritz and Zermatt. Great value winter programmes available at these two wonderful de-luxe hotels, prices starting from £460 per person for three nights, half pension, two days unlimted ski-passes (excluding airfare). Telephone our London office (44) + 0181 846 9069 £ THE ANCHOR- HOTEL * RESTAURANT - BARS WAL8EKSW1CK* SUFFOLK ■ IF 18 6UA TkL- 02502 722222 * Hue 02502 722283 Tired, weary, worn outi Get away from the stress of the modem world and visit the Anchor at Walbcrswick. ■Situated rwixz sea, marshes and river, this small unobtrusive hotel offers simply furnished rooms, blazing lag fires and excellent food washed down byAdnams Award Winning Wines. Stay any two nights for dinner, bed and breakfast during fanuary. February and March and we will donate four bottles of wine chosen especially far you by Adnams Wine Merchants. Call nmv quoting F/T W*. Offer subject to svuOsbUity- SELSDON PARK Where Christmas is always something special In hnfcvb- ijun-taw. ^ line tnuronL a vivkI) ui .niuru miaou, mo hvnJtnl TwkLMHl *.iir». and unnviHn! '■fmm and Icrurc Imilitn- v Solid.® Part n the tonne >tf tunpiulm. £uud lit my. mid umplac irliuJkn. R*ii & Rcttadbr Brrata from L>0 per perv.au Wed : _ lh ■ Sal .«lh Dev. Mon K Sal 6* Jan llcw call in- write fin- nor bruchun.'. SANDKHSTKAD • SOUTH CROYDON • SVRREY CR8BYA* TELEPHONE: 0181 857 8811 • F^ OISI 651 8171 9 HIGHBULLEN Cvumr> House Hotel. Chmlch-uuhnlt. Nonh Devon • Scv Inded Yet Manellww Vic»e. • HuJiK Rato I ReiUunun * -uiot^uiic rmrai In all the impailial Hilcl (tuider • 4 Cm»Oi lltghlv Commended (iatri from £4 - . S<> fc« C - * 1 HU pppn iiwludmy dinner, bivitlloi. rcriwe.iu and IN LIMITED FREE GOLF UI ER IS MILTS OF S \LUO>. SF.A THOLT A BROW’S «Ot T FISHING IndmA intlivi hMnl | HORSTED PLACE <&> Sparilig Emit & Haiti umi uonrrr. ucMinr.CAii »unsi»Twi, jit MifW- otiil mm ixMiirirdiiwiii I There emn bo no mere traditional w*y in wbid, to spend the festive season than ■t Ranted Place. Good fbod and wine r w n plwus at the delightful miri v ura hflgg (tad. comfortaU* rooms. Roaring bg Bras, the wqnidw Chnatmae dacnrettaai ud a warm and friendly atmosphere will mska this particular Christmas an* to ransmbsr. We also have excellent leisure facilities In rinding golf at the Bast Btuswx National CMTCtafa, a totaled indoor swimming pool and an sO-weatfaer Bands court. UTTLK HOB3TED. UCKPIELD. EAST SUSSEX TN22 BTS lUephom:' 01826 750661 PmcsimDe; 01825 7B04S9 12 SnuAr Si ^M es SADNOKR3TOOT Ponbrehedtbw BAM SNB AA*w UCm* Sprciitl Suitinirr Ili-calLs i:> cnsuiti- ln'druoiii'- I.im'.iI n>h arid Seafood ll.'iiUd Pool 1’ark.inii TO oar> CIIIUSTMAS IIOL SF PARTY rolMHS-'XI S7 2.Wf IjThe Cbfton Hotels ®i***Ea F 0 LKST 0 HFS PREMIER HOial Elegwit Rsgsncy-Slylt cSfl top hotel 80 bsdroom an-sutts. satoBtt* TV. Hjgg ftt Mate flaMML CLIFTON WEEKEND BREAKS I E Z nts BAB DBpp ■ 2 nla DB*B 02 pd I anNQW^trttacsMggSpphcNwj I ■CM?fSTHASreSTTVTDES ■ \ 4 &r My mtfchiB fare Crrape-pacral 7dar**r«fa*iBtanEW4JOp»peaon} HOT YEARS EVE DMtB* Dahcea cabaret. 15 n*1 HP ■ «•*«» Ihi 01303 “IN A CORNISH GARDEN BY THE SEA” NANSIDWELL COUNTRY HOUSE HOTEL 16 NANS1DWELL A true Country House Hotel in the Old Tradition Roaring log fires, pretty chintzes, fresh flowers, books and magazines with a Restaurant (open to non-residents) now recognised . as one of foe best in Cornwall. Awarded Restaurant of the County by The Good Fbod Guide. Very easy nc yrs s to our wonderful gardens, many open during the Winter. Beautiful sea views in a unique position by foe Helford River, marreflotis coastal walks from our five acres of sub-tropical gardens. Special Winter prices £65 per person to include Dinner, Continental Breakfast and VAT, during November, December, February & March - Rooms still available far Christmas and New Yeas. Mawnan, Falmouth, Cornwall TR11 5HU. TeL* 01326 250340 Fax: 01326 250440 HUMBUG! TVho stdJ there was no siudi thing as a traditional Christmas? Bring your family and friends and join us for a very special Festive Season at Hanbmy . * from£175f» per room, per night Christmas Eve Cards * Mulled Wine Sc Mince Pies * Log Hres 4-Ccrurse Gourmet Dinner " £48.00 per person 5-Couise Traditional Christmas Day Lunch * 09-50 per person (and Santa bearing gifts for all) New Year's Eve Celebration Dinner CocklaflReoeptioa *liveMuric& Dancing . Champagne & Best Wishes at Midnight * £115 per person CmxRssbrvjoxnsncwcn 01920 487722 © HANBURY MANOR HOTEL AA ***** RAC Ware, Hertfordshire SG12 OSD r ESSENTIAL HOTELS ^ BROCHURE GUIDE ORDER FORM Please enter the appropriate number for the hotel brochures you would like to receive, enter your own name and address and then send or fox this coupon to Che address shown. Replies must be received no later than 30th December 1995 I- Grand Hotel Zerraaoerbof Sttvreoa House □ 9. HighbuQen Hotel □ 2. Champneys □ 10. The Halkin Head □ 3. Hanbary Manor □ 21 . Elizabeth Hotel □ 4. The Anchor Hotel □ 12. St Brides Hotel □ 5. Combe Grove Manor □ 13. Riber Hall □ 6. Homead Place □ 14. London Elizabeth Hotel ■ a 7. SebdonPadc O 15. The Clifton Hoed a &. Cashel House Hotel a Id Nandiswell □ 17. Oaldey Court Hotel □ TITLE INITIAL SURNAME. ADDRESS POSTCODE* DAYTIME TELEPHONE FAX WEEKEND FT ESSENTIAL HOTELS BROCHURE SERVICE (Ref 22 J95) Capacity House, 2*6 Rothsay Street. London SE1 4UD. Fax No: 0171 357 6065 Ihe information you provide will be held by foe Financial Tit and may be used in keep you informed of FT products and by oi selected companies for mailing ibt purposes- The FT is regjste ™d=r tbe Daa Protection Act 1984. Ruanda] Tiroes, Number < Southwark Bridge, London SE1 9HL. Phase tick *i s fc* ify^ tssapmaes approved by the FT Group. □ 1 * FINANCIAL TIMES WEEKEND NOVEM BER 2S7NOVEMBER 26 1 995 WEEKEND FT XIII SPORT Donald Woods on the lessons to be learnt from South Africa E ngland's first cricket tour to South Africa in SO years is the continu- ation of a process that began more than 100 years ago when Sir C. Aubrey Smith captained the inaugural England touring side before moving to Los Angeles and founding the Hollywood Cricket Club with Boris Karloff and others. Travel during that first tour was hazardous in parts, the team crossing the Swartberg Pass to Oudtshoom by stage- coach and cart. It is daunting even today, by car. In 1888, as they negotiated the side of a canyon by the li ght of only one lantern, little Bobby Abel of Surrey called out in alarm: “Mr Smith, don’t let us go any fur- ther. It's as well to be killed outright as to be frightened to death!" The nest day, the stage- coaches had to be floated over the flooded Olifants river, and it took the entire contents of Smith's whisky flask to per- suade the jittery Abel to attempt the crossing. But he survived and proved the bat- ting success of the tour, scor- ing the first Test match cen- tury on South African soil and heading the averages. Cricket is thought to have been played first in South Africa in 1795 during the Brit- ish occupation of the Cape, but the first recorded match was in 1807 on Green Paint Common, Cape Town, between Artillery Mess and Cape Colony Officers. Hie first match for which full scorecard details are available was in i860 between Durban and Pietermaritzburg, Durban winning by three wickets. This wa i not long after King's epic ride of Tnilpg in eight to G raham- t help for the garrison, siege by Cricket Where cricket is a truly national game England batsman Graham Thorpe in Hie flret fast Tha way wa ware: Dave Nome, the Springbok great. Mi son, Dudley, foSowed In Ms footsteps trooper Di several b days from stown to embattled [British which wa) under insurgent ioers. Their descen- dants are now helping to lift the siege ty the England crick- eters. Injthe present South African s(uad. no fewer than four have Afrikaans as their first language. This is a recent development A generation ago. few Afrika- ners knew or cared about cricket Indeed, one A frikaner prime minis ter, DJ. Malan , (m being introduced to the legend- ary Springbok captain Dudley Nourse, said: *T hope you enjoy your visit to our country." One of his successors, BJ. Vorster. was better informed and used to arrange for Test scores to be brought to him rinr ing parliam entary debates. Once, when told in Afrikaans that the English bad lost three wickets, he quipped: “HuUe Engelse q f ons Engebe?" (Their English or ours?) One of Vorster’s more col- ourful colleagues was Piet Koomhof, the minister of sport hi 1976, my friend Kemal Casoojee and I had formed the Rainbow Cricket Club, a point- edly multi-racial teem of three whites, three blacks, three Col- oureds and two Indians to play illegal cricket by challenging the apartheid law prohibiting "mixed” sport We applied to join the Border League in the eastern Cape, but the white administrators were too scared to confront the government by registering our dub. They said they would do so only if the minister of sport consented. At that time, Koomhof wanted to avoid embarrass- ments internationally and was prepared privately to whittle away at apartheid sport if it were done discreetly. I tele- phoned him and he said we were to go ahead, but quietly, without publicity. “Juss tell them to get mi with the bladdy game," he said, in his inimita- ble manner. But the white Border cricket nffi rials wanted his permission in wilting, so I flew to Johan- nesburg and saw him and Beyers Hoek, his deputy minis- ter, a man of excruciating cau- tion. "Are they mad?” Koom- hof exclaim pri_ “I can't pot that in writing, on my official letterhead. Mr Vorster would kick me out of the government, man!" I pointed out that the offi- cials had not specified the writ- ing had to be on an official letterhead. Using the back of a cardboard cigarette box, I then drafted permission for the Rainbow Cricket Club to play in the Border League, and invited Koomhof to sign. He was dubious but intrigued. He was a man who liked to cut comers if -he felt he could get away with it, and be seemed tempted as I held out the pen. Hoek, however, was beside himself, repeating agi- tatedly: "You cannot do it. Dr Koomhof. It’s against policy." But file beleaguered minister seized the pen suddenly and signed with a flourish, telling his shocked deputy: “Ach, Beyers, we've got to bladdy well start somewhere!” And that is how South African cricket was integrated offi- cially - an the back of a ciga- rette box. The people who made it all possible were a remarkable few. One was a 14-year-old Pretoria schoolboy, a left-handed batsman who shared his father's passim for sport in general and cricket in particular. But his parents. Walter and Adelaine Ha in. were hounded into exile for their liberal politics, so young Peter turned his attention to lending demonstrations abroad against racially-selected teams from South Africa. On arrival in the UK, he so misunderstood British ways that when his new headmaster said: "Ham, would you like to write me an essay on what it is like to Start school in another country?" he replied, in all colonial innocence: "No. thanks.” Another young fellow who did his bit against sports apart- heid was a teacher named Den- nis Bratus who, as an officially hUon Deu&di PIcBn Utray designated Coloured, was barred from taking part in South Africa's Olympic trials. He went into protest politics ins tead and was imprisoned on Robben island with Nelson Mandela. After serving his sentence, he was re-arrested in central Johannesburg, tried to run away and was shot in the back. He lay bleeding while an ambulance was summoned but, when it arrived, it was for “whites only". So he bled some more while they called for a Coloured ambulance. His next escape attempt was successful and he made it to London, where he founded the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee and cam- paigned with Ham and others to stop all Springbok tours. And that is how we come to be enjoying a resumption of offi- cial tours to South Africa now that apartheid is abolished. Koomhof has entered the spirit of the new South Africa so enthusiastically that he has set up house with an attractive young woman also designated previously as Coloured. When I saw him last he held up their baby proudly and said: "Man, that’s what 1 call a real South African baby, hey!" Another "real South African baby" who would have been "Coloured” under the old rules is left-arm spin bowler Paul Adams. At 18, he is causing considerable consternation to Mike Atherton's batsmen. Part of the problem he poses is his curious action where, at the point of delivery, he appears to be studying his own bootlace closely. The puzzled Englishmen cannot figure out how Adams can bowl so accu- rately without looking at the stumps, whereas Devon Mal- colm is seen to be doing the opposite. More is in store for South Africa's cricketing opponents, however, as young blacks come to the fore. Two promising young fast bowlers are Mase- mola and Ntiiii, and South African coaches predict many more where they come from. Thus, the future seems bright for South African cricket as the great game is carried into all parts of society at last And that surely makes sense because, if it is made part of every school, every group and every region, it becomes truly national England should try this. ■ Donald Woods, a former newspaper editor, was the only while member of the governing council of the South African Cricket Board of Control when he was arrested and banned m 1977 for editorials blaming the Vorster government for the death of black activist Steve Biko. Placed under surveil- lance. he escaped with his fam- ily to the UK, as portrayed in the Richard Attenborough film " Cry Freedom * Based in Lon- don, he has written five books on South Africa. Motoring / Stuart Marshall Fiat steals the prize forked the wrong horse, bu only just For Euro- Car of the Year 1996. , I toped the Peugeot 406 to bi the shortest of heads, l lint’s Bravo/Brava sec- |o event. Fiat, which won the Year 1995 with the squeezed into first place ie second year running, ling that has never hap- before in the competi- 31 -year history-. But it was close. Bravo'Brava scared 378 (27 per cent of the vote) „___t the Peugeot 406’s 363 poits <25.93 per cent). aird. as I forecast was the jj A4. Fourth and fifth were till Opel (Vauxhall in Britain) Vftra <217 points) and Merced- ttfienz E -Class (196 points >- I tfeht these would have been inkced the other way round. 0f the 56 jurors, 24 made ^avo Brava their first choice £7'Tv * The Rat Brava 5-door. Brava's clean and 19 put it second. Fiat has every reason to be delighted with the result and Peugeot to be disappointed to be pipped at the post I doubt that Audi had seri- ously entertained any hope of winning with the A4, or Mercedes-Benz with the E-Class. But Opel (Vauxhall) must be downcast at Vectra’s failure to make a greater impression. It scored little more than half the points of the Fiat Mare significantly, it lost by a distance to its market rival, the 406. Maybe it just did not look different enough from its predecessor. Panto has been a best seller this year because it is a thor- oughly good small car. No doubt the Car of the Year acco- lade helped, as it will help' Bravo and Brava to fight off ffhanwng ppt such as Renault’s 19 replacement, the Mdgane. This was not eligible for Car of the Year 1996 as too few will have been sold wtthin the qual- ifying period. ■ But it has been proved more than once that if the title goes to a poor car. it still will not sell Whereas a good one, even if denied the title, will be a money spinner for the makers and dealers. Just watch the sales figures for the 406. A4, Vectra and E-Class. Car of the Year is a wonderful advertis- ing copy platform but it really does not mean much more than that. A reward for cleanliness? ,posi\ too much hat next week seller will cut the ltv on the new fuels so they are heaper at the ileaded petrol, less than petrol lurope. I think it he UK too cut would • sale of diesel me new car in In the UK. diesels st over one new i five. i to 30 per cent less fuel than comparable petrol cars and. in all but one aspect, have less objectionable exhaust emissions. Their one weak spot has been particulates; microscopically small solid particles, mainly of carbon, which are ejected with the exhaust gases. The new cleaner diesel fuels produce fewer particulates as well as much less sulphur dioxide tis? P m ■ !SU . £ 5295 by selling uuportw which is almost sulphur-free, at its supermarket filling stations in south-east England . It costs more to produce than normal diesel because it needs extra refining, and the Salisbury's price is 2p per m* highe r than the standard lond but it still sells. to City Diesel are now sdkng their own environmentally friendlier diesel fuels. diesel Renault Safrane Executive ?5Jitre TD. which I have just driven for 5,000 miles (8,050km) jM-m+nro minimal amoun ts nf particulates. You see them smoking only when driven very hard, with excessive use of the turbocharger for maximum acceleration. The main particulate culprits are heavy lorries and buses - especially old and ill-maintained ones - and delivery vans. The Safrane, listed at £20,405, must be rated a best buy among largp execntlTO CfaSB diesels because the price includes automatic transmission, air c onditioning , leather seats, power operated sunr oof, windows and mirrors, anti-lock brakes, two airbags and cruise control It is one of the most comfortable and effortless care I have driven or ridden in. The rear seat backrest folds flat, estate car style, for carrying big and bulky thing s Renault has dearly aimed the Safrane E x e c u t ive 2^TD at managerial motorists who may be going diesel for the first Safrane's forte Is effortless ertrising at sensible speeds. At 70mph/113kph the engine is fanning over lazily at little more than 2,000rpm and the loudest sound insi de is th e soft swish of its tyres. Driving an country roads at 5Qmph/8Qkph and L500rpm is relaxation itself. The reluctance to get up into top - and eagerness to change down to provide lots of urge for overtaking - does not help fuel consumption. Over <1000 miles the Safrane has never bettered Slmpg (8-83 1/1 00km) and once sank as low as 24.6mpg (11.48 ]/100km) for a tankfol used mainly on short trips with the air-conditioning on full blast But that is not bad for a large and luxurious car. In France, where diesel is relatively cheap, a Safrane TD would slash fuel bills by 30 per cent even if its consumption were no better than that of a petrol-engined version. In Britain, it is still cheaper to ran than, a petrol-engined equivalent, although the thffermce is not so great as it is in France. •Pvbestiat as Kent of My 1P95. Travel the Asia-Pacific business world by mouse New that FT Country Surveys are available on disk, you may dick your way around a country’s business landscape with ease. Maps, graphs, tables . . . case studies. .. economic and political news and profiles ... key facts. At the touch of a button, your FT Survey becomes a portable working document. 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In 1995, 80 FT Country Surveys wlU be published on floppy disk In association with XIV WEEKEND FT FINANCIAL TIMES WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25/NOVEMBER 26 1995 LONDON PROPERTY Lennox house RICHMOND BRIDGE BUYING FOR INVESTMENT OR OCCUPATION ? W6 find the best opportunities In London (and Cambridge] pfovttng a fuB package sarvtea: Aaptaton, Brian ©a (horn 4.9* fixed) Fumtatang, Letting 4 Management. TdMWI:01 71 4834291 Faxdnn 493 4319 PROPERTY FIND: Wo ran IW to prepw- ty you rant. Coll Mho fait Ml 0171 584 5004 Phase II „ LEATHERMAKKET SQUAKE _ AVAILABLE NOW! LONDON RENTALS Only the following remaining for February completion: ■ Five 2 bedroom apartments and one stunning penthouse - 24-hour security ■ Leisure facilities ■ Nursery - Prices from X. 2 20, 000 Viewing available 7 davs a week. Call: & ■> 0181 744 0113 DELTA (UK) LAND DEVROPMJENTS PLC Richmond Bridge, Cambridge Road, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Fax: 0181 744 0014 Converted Tfea Warehouse with Character ECX A dreke of 3 gpartinenu ess* with g fa y fr nrre* pM-*jirinn ROOBL fchcteO & 2 fcabrooms. too flats with 'ftrraces. 1045SQJTHX 1300 SOFT. 'Exposed brickwork. Higft ceilings. Wooden Floors' Long ks E350 P.W. per Cm anfbrmsfaed. Mt rmUhia 01 71-266- EQtO KBtStNGTONrCSfTRAL LONDON, Uf 0 «r selection c4 qua«y prapertas. CiBO-OBM p/w. From 3 «*s to 3 yis- Chart Aasocfiasa 0T71 792 07%L 10-7pm RESENTS PARK, CTRL Lencton, ehwrn- Ing 3*4 Qed period nrare house, DU nxep, fabulous htthan. 2 bar* etudyMtfi bed. Oarage. Supretriy tumshed. £850 mA. (Wreridaeri). 0171 588*6780073 618811. INTERNATIONAL PROPERTY * rs ...... vatr". cc '.v non (fine corvettes Me j server cn ■ * r \';r, cf.'l r 0Ci'P JiUt'TfnTS CTi orr •/ icijses. ■,-ch c&rr tines h a: unspc-i:T ej'u'Cj c.jt r g ;;>ck to the 'ate MALLORCA S/W-COAST GOLF-SIDE HOUSES PENTHOUSES & FLATS FIRST QUALITY AIR COND. ETC. £100,000-1,000,000 STOCK-LUXURY PROPERTY Tel: (3471) 676884 Fax: (3471) 676891 MoMe: (3406) 097766 D II N B A R W H A R I HISTORIC turd rile. 20 rrtna Sena. 7 apa- doua, kmay hem pv* tore/odra. CH, TaL pool etc. Tree* record 6 m a ra na fcte prices. Pto wfdeat itocvon In 8 regions. Bnan A French 6 Am. lei 0171 284 0114. LI MEHOIISE FRENCH PROPERTY WWS Month* to. rmm Adri paata leg* etoiei etc. Mi lor )Or FREE copy now Ite 061 947 1834 FAIRBRIAR M^Ddxnham r>*X Thorpe -S* 01714082745 r-rrrti COSTA DEL SOL PROPERTES Ustah Offices. For brionn a rion a Prim ht ring 0181 8033781 anyone. Fax 3559 ALICANTE, SPAIN. VSas/Apfa lor sate. Deari e Boperfes. RICHE Estaat Agents. Tet 003* S621B038. Fax; 003*8 5140935 INTERNATIONAL PROPERTY LUXURY VILLAS & APARTMENTS A L G A P. V E PORTUGAL BARBICAN Spectacular views from 31st floor 3 bed flat. Mod kitchen, 24 hr potter. £230,000 Frank Harris A Co 0171 600 79M OUESe QUAY, £04. An Dtri pled a tone rat on to *ih Boer of a wad maWained development an Upper Themes Street batmen Btoritfera md SaNwerii brirfees. £65,000 UK 0171 987 0000 \ nni,|Ui hull I li lKaii-* vlurm jIF-nnrj U iubt i< jihl 1 + «..L> |vr-i«jl hx |'lu, j ^tui,nlml HIM II mi Ml I Lirniix .1 7, |> j he I I, rr- llii.'tur i> linii> il.L il i-.iifuiltl »l li‘4'1 r. i,l. r ’ ' V * I nlli ImMii-Ih -I J|uniiu-IIIH ■s in, i .iinl li i Ji iiu iuu i ilfcir;. ■ In’ It In i. ii ■ i *«.i X* ’ Mi|ml- IS lu ll •• Il .•■np»- jinl ■■■|.il t , * ,, i ■J- I I...II 1 S 11 Ill III il. 1 ,.n I-, lull nulu tial lY.fiU M.i. J H. Al. "HI 111 lullin'.' llnill lln , IU-1 Ji.l J|ipii.tllll4li II 11' ■•>, iiiil,. Ir mi MiIi m lii|*t Illlfi iJIITJiI'LiI In II , Hill -iin.nl. ti i.; |■■■llll■ ->|ii- ■ .iiinli ,.|,/, l 1 i ili l • mull i l lilt* -4l.il _.JI. I.nlll*. nflu-li. -il lljllillll-.' I l.ill.aiin 141 ml in. iil> I r..| I 1111 I.ili,, mi i|.jii|iii nl> mtn iins.isn Own a luxurious apartment in Southern Spain with no costs and a very attractive income. FROM £80.000 TO £500,000 PHONE OR FAX NOW FOR BROCHURE 01737 242259 Fax: 01737 226055 e-mail: t00084Cg1elepac.pt VIEWING WEEKENDS AVAILABLE FRENCH RIVIERA: CANNES (06) Vfllm in ground* of approximately 7360 iqjy wife nripariay pool ami I pinnremlrTiewoUheBay of Caaaeel Cafifomiao-styfe buikhag on 3 krveR [ built 198i total livable area of .. a p pro x tanateiy 600 sqja. High aten- daxd fl niah . Air conditioning. Separate studio. White rafale heated j swimming pooL with cascading water. Landscaped psdm. Garage. Cieeahcuse Caretaker's lodge. Reaerre price: 15JWL0B0 FF Waiting days 29 November and 8 j December from 10 Is 10 am -12pm and 16 December from 2 to 5 pm. Sumner Place South Kensington, London SW7 An outstanding refurbishment of six important Grade II listed family houses with a specification of works and quality of fittings to the highest standard. A typical house comprises: 5 Bedrooms. 4 Bathrooms. Magnificent drawing room. Dining room. Games room. Kitchen. Conservatory. Cloakrooms. Patio. Gardens. marchc immotnlier dee rmlair e s Mato* B. da LAVAL - Notary Td. (331) 92 98 31 N - Fax (331) 92 9831 M LEASEHOLD 150 YEARS PRICES FROM £1.395,000 Joint Agents CLUTTONS ALTO ■■■■> Golf & Cou>itry Club — A MOWLEM DEVELOPMENT IN PORTUGAL — 1 (.’ \wi;s «Su Rk.ion Deal tooiy andi enHuhol local Encli*t> Embk A^mB offering “1“»:«riectioo of - H&iti* Apts -Srm* RrtaU . Coastal A Inland FroKti regaocred Uocm tnideev LONDON RESIDENTIAL AGENCY 168 Branptna Road. Loodoo SW3 IHW 0171-584 2044 Fax *171-5842872 Knight Frank IZ & Rutlev •* >:r< ft. I ,l?i : hr SV. ’,\ • > f i 0171-824 8171 i . i., jn-i. .* ti iii.n ii. Ii«Lj» l“f IhiiIh r .I.U.1- la lab Club 1 1 liuni'n • .aril. n. I ■ null 41 W 4 il >K T. I nlSI ,KJ i -H'S. Ij,, him "t ' i^i'ii MONTE-CARLO SUN TOWER “Carre d’Or" superb 3-room apart- ment 146 sq.m, with big terrace, living room, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, sea view (56) AAGEDI •4 Bd On Mrulms M C bMKJj Mcoaco \^Td .* i-**: IbS Fax SOI »12^ COTE D^ZUR, ALPBS MAHUBCS a VAH SPA (EU) Ml to uridM renoa dl «•» nl apartniares tium E150H to a avian. Item 71 -483 0836 Fax: 0171-483 0438 COUNTRY PROPERTY IU< II'IRIY his-] irfu ( iii.wijiirMiM i’" 1 IOANWOES DEVELOPERS LTD. high cuaUt man. rau a n ens. Mjntu L tfpj saoL Pmouiv Pasncs. itou reams. Fct funnv rOo 6 Crxnures Bo 654" (jmjwd Cyprus. rSL 05-384077. FAX 05-38*37« SOJS[ VIDA POSSIBLY ONE OF THE FINEST HOUSES 5 Km Pxlma City - 8 Km Airport A n important houu «:iiuatcd in one of Malloiva's nuist exclusive areas. 4 rvccpuon rooms, master bedroom suilc. b beduxim snites wine cellar, swimminy pool, floodlit tennis court, sialf acciimmoda- tion. private well. In all about N.UOI! m : APPLY: Tel. 003471 576884 Fax: 003471 676891 ScmTERLANn VSan nwa 3 bod gtl- ii rodxcd 13 qu» 9 to OvniMy * bod eftetet terysn. trenef ms *ea eetere X-ras. de Lao S Pm*. W !*44j 01 81 7«2 (TC3 Fa*. CIS’ 7«0567 OLYMPIC RENTALS OLYMPICS Jute. July. Augusi • dwiy icr ytquc dKriaTs mtren honMm r^niim fram mjjcr «n»** O «yS ■c-nc^sJ’ reauoita. sfqpng. ccSea nausea - cut»c ba.-Brt X to ) b. 2 1-2 Rrr rjncious orcwtjM.-rfiu area indoor and aisurc *2 poc4(pders. un pond. JxuBMdM«ai pany dcteteiga gaumw ■u^rtM-sbCaS arCcr c omstta stf a«d- OX -USD fcDJOO pa 2 «X>S, Clang Garce-cmor perads nega utto-mo raeh mmruir.rtKlc&J reOiiteC LS4J«-8S1«3a INDORRA - SXI TAX HAVEN No* 'Routes bore: 1 bedroom C2r.000 2 beds £30.000. 3 bods 05.000 houses CT^ 500. Bonte* 576 000 Land Respond Pwrerta. 01 B1 5sss Fa« B3TIK0* VILLAS ABROAD )OCA RATON PALM BEACH FLORIDA ivajrrtmnl A Gail Course Homes Canmercoi Kreti Runs Rep N»_£S£. Conuff Ktoyn Crmre. RnaUor. Fa* ywr ui n ma you tn dears Fa> DSA rsi 8078 Tel USA SO? 347 2GZ3 ESTATES BiTEHNATTOHAL Vsttij EVV Rebates spooad' »nas f. sa i-^i.na-a deta>a *>5i che.“5psc*s C:'i 2J4 OUEANSEV SbreUa & Company ud 4 Sous; EjpLsVKte. St Pel ci ?jr? uno o" l«c Uianai Vugosl ^dfoorj^-t Ewe TteO«* 7l«4S Fa<- W USA MM BEACH dtmq ocoai ten noma * DM 4 bom POOL 500 tey got 3 Uto ntbaoUH-. Fa. ASf*USA.l-*37-5aMu47 CANNES MARIKA. Begar: «a»r.fi:n: I bed M aoa: berei yuR r> '-ar*. Ace pjfl kiw and S pea w srfe Fla: i red- and baa; «i5m Fn ii®f l -a Ergan Eator fleets Ri -ra 3C3J9J -s 07 OLYMPIC RENTALS PRIVATE HOME 1 Space sunabio for temily ot 5 1200 sauare lea. praew ertranoe, cable TV. pmus bath and sspanne sheer- er. hvirig area, eorecmoi SreakfasL ccoi. terms, patio. 2 Aedibcui space tar coup fa . douirifl Doc. pm ale bath, all amenrtles S250 per posen perragh* TW: USA - 770-853-2147 or Fax: 770-953-3396 Bidwells CHARTERED SURVEYORS A variety of exciting equestrian opportunities wi t hin 5Vr miles of Newmarket MIDDLE PARK STUD Now available in 6 lots - guide prices from ^295,000 Lot 1: 20' icm. 77 baxn (mcluding foaling unit). 1 dab. Piaomng romcnc for house, sabhn& coined icbooliag to. Lot 4: 35 JCra. 18 baxn. Modem 4 bedroom bouse. Pbrnung caoKor tor more ban. Lot 5: 41 res. 18 bass Modon 4 bedroom bouse. Lot 2: 6" arc. Bungalow and bam. PUnamg cmbk be more bora. r _ .. ... , Lot &l 217 acres. Wfcmd 6 fiiriong raoicd upfaifl Lot acTCi divided mco 3 paddocks. gallops. Piazunng r pfwytf far principal bcxoc. Use of 5 furlong uphill woodchip gallop by separate arrangement. 01223 841841 TRUHPIPI6T0H ROAD • CAMBRIDOf - CBZ 2LD I Uff V ST (DVU'IO*. CAMDRtDQL IPSWICH NORTHAMPTON N 6 A «M C H .LflN^H Peterborough, Cambridgeshire NORTHEY & FOUR CHIMNEYS FARM • 430 acre let farm • * Grade 1 and 2 land * * Substantial sand & gravel deposits • Range of farm buildings and 2 cottages For Sale by Private Treaty SaviHs, Lincoln 01522 534691 Contact: Robert Hurst Humberts COUNTRY RENTALS BATH atte SBtectaid property to let £400- £3.000 pan. Challenger Erato 01S25 445445 Men-Sa « S«i IOC. ism CENTURY COTSWOCD MANOR House into heoR of PanteAvffiage, ray CMMH tonffiy S mt tar house puss. Vsb ^g fees 8. W»l toAg ran oaouM gpunift wd H ieeted to ri n i n Bpu d . gum gteB ft mnderiul rara Ao# Md Dm Hr M or long let "fet 01 *52 91 399, 0171 235 6037. NEW tSU! OF WKHT AftyTTVBVT E89.0CC Band rmm 2 btouum aasa im t w tuwgy ttoriopnent wiririn Sao yatari ef to nasr. tetiiriCora'bnCHR fc w j- Qj — | pounds, private patoig £89,000’ Irene Homes. Miu Gardres, Tenures Rood, Cerae, P031 73$ ta: 0TV83 280240 mm Surrey Acres 2 T 1 * 3, Hari rt 4 nula. Gunrici 6 miles' (London - Vj ring j$ minutes}. Cmwbry 8 antes An arable and pasture farm with oatline pianolas consent rorgolfoa part oT the holding. mgCOns “ t ■ Ove ** neC ^ Ciacnsive modernisation with bedroom cottage Danb™aiki«f^SL ar f °T mer f ® rm buildings with potcu- UnduSn^ nSdfZd Pb«"in g . i o Krtira rarair Oodlartd with planning consem for an 18 hole golf course, dub bouse andaoSyfSi^; ' Arable, pasture and woodland. For rale H . whole a- b 7 ^ Contac t-. Hum berts Leisure 0171 629 6700 ^L hl g lnbcTl8 1-° orion Office 0171 629 09P9 a lore t JMWfH Uu HP*’ n* .! i* ' .„i ht’i * • ' ;jn B ./Cl-'-f ■ t> :J & 1ST. -,-u - J - ... 1 ■ ii v-i: ?» ■ : .ipj 1 .*:'' fit ■i jT' 1 . 1 D- • • sp: -■ A5.lV i 5 .ti 5 '■ Ee." ; - •• • 1 Ss 4 •' " 1 £*•• »‘ -j! in • • ■" 1 ’■•Tdrii ::: '• • -- ’ll- .. t 2 =i.- ••• l l- * * JjW.' .5 jcj:... ;. ••• ■* : i.h*sn Rose o mome til of e< prom Robin 1 .;hh* l ox ^Usilf : *1 Tw:. 3 r., ‘: . ?P»ua*h;-. i** H • . ' p. ?f4ri.., ^5" 1 ; W~“ v . : tL^ 1 V’> • ! IlJ . - ■ | -‘; J’tee ,-7- ■ :• n-i;..-, a* ■ P-la ' 4 i:i.-v •- II:.. K*Ur:\ %*;■ - K ' ''I v>,-' vv* i>V-- ■ /V 'IW! . i \ A title for the price of a lordship Audrey Powell finds that anyone can become a lord of the manor B ecoming lord of the manor, with such rights as holding fairs, extracting minerals and charging tolls, could cost as lit- tle as £4,000. The average price of a lord- ship today is £5,000. At their peak in the 1980s it was £9,000, but, since then, the.market for titles has been quiet. They have continued /to be sold through specialist! agents, how- ever, and some now feel it is worth holding auctions again. More than SO lordships and feudal baronies are hnfng auc- tioned in the City of London on December 6. The lordships relate to manors scattered around England aid most are expected to fetca between £4,000 and £6.000 esch. A few could nake more. That relating to Brkdale, Lan- cashire. which iicludes the Royal Birkdale folf links (a Christmas gift For a keen golfer?) could sell for up to £7,500. Those of Diss in Nor- folk, and Tivertoi in Devon, which include historic rights, might attract beween £7,000 and £9,000. The Iish baronies cost much more - between £20,000 and £25,00. Manorial lordslips are some- thing of a curicdty. They are claimed to be tie oldest tides still in contizuous use in Rn gfanrf and Wales. Some are recorded in the Domesday sur- vey of land and property hold- ings made in tn gland in the llth century. It is possible to sell them, as in the case pf hose being auc- tioned, i manorial the lord9hij> then depends on "itely from the ejta*. The value of its locatioij if any, riff come with history mid what, its and documents A buyer can call or herself. Lord of the Manor of (or Lord of) Sibbertoft, or Appleton Wlske, for example, and can apply for a coat of arms. But a manorial Lordship should not be con f used with a peerage and does not entitle the owner to a seat in the House of Lords. The rights that may survive with lordships could include those to hold markets or fairs. Collect tolls, extract mlnmik There might, also be grazing. Sporting Ur fitting ri ghts Such titles are sometimes bought as presents for close relatives, sometimes for the cachet of owning a title, albeit one with limitations. Some people win buy the lordship of a place with the same n™* as their own, or with family asso- ciations. The titles are popular with overseas b u y e rs. Manorial Auc- tioneers, which is arranging the forthcoming auction and which keeps a list of lordships available for private treaty sale, says foreign interest has increased from 15 per cent to 30 per cent in the last two years. Americans and Cana- dians are particularly inter- ested in a link with the old country. Other purchasers are inter- ested in the many ancient doc- uments that come with some titles - one had 2#J0 - and because they enjoy being part of a chain of owners that goes back hundreds of years and may fonimie the name of a monarch, such as Henry Ym or Elizabeth L Bay Knappett, who for many years handled lordships fen: agent Strutt & Parker, sold the lordship of Stratford-upon- Avon, Warwickshire (the birth- place of William Shakespeare), Gardening ose of the oment is 11 of eastern promise [Robin Lane Fox praises the elusive Bengal Crimson I his extraordinary November means gar- deners may not be , surprised to know ijy best flower this week- is a rose. Of course, tpmanship comes into and it has to be a rose i is not acknowledged in of the lists and seems to hly contentious. •serves a tribute because ngs to a serious group of s that always distinguish Gives. Whatever you of their colour, you can- nue with the generosity best of them. Some wm try to flower early in ber. a habit worth any- pace and money. ose of the moment first 0 my notice in the lovely garden of Helen Dillon 1 described in August lied it Bengal Cnmson, did justice to its single She also gave mesome j, to which I applied the 0 d of the expert - with lictable result that they JheSja physic Garden to the rescue, even it did not know about with the cuttings. This 1 garden in then** on has long ha d ar ose bicb is called and propagated for sale ars. I received one as a with the comment VR s so easy to root from s that the garden had a few to spare, il Crimson has now ndoors for the wmtw 5 so often, a plants is best appreciated he competition sle*. igle flowers are near«ff than crimson, which oTwonderiftheWdi was not even bett^ Is. however, ore simitar Wonderfully ssESisfyx ways from the fresh sterna. It is enjoying life as a pot plant and is flowering its head off even now. But the big nur- serymen do not even list it, and I try to pretend that my pleasure is unrelated to the feet that it is not even men- tioned in Peter Beales* magiste- rial book, Classic Roses. Bengal Crimson has nothing much to do with Bengal It has thfa name because it is a China rose, some of the earliest Chinese roses reached Europe through India without being traced to their source. I have decided that Bengal Crimson is probably connected to the well-known Rosa Mutabfiis. Same people like this multi- coloured single rose, which looks like a scrambled mess of orange and red to my eye. Ben- gal Crimson has similar flow- ers and must be a clos eiria - t v>n , although the exact status of its mutable kinsman is dis- puted. Both are Chinese and. somehow, my red one must have arrived many years ago in the trade from India. Can you buy ft, you might wander. Outdoors, this' sage red rose is said by someth he rather untidy. But the Chelsea Physic Garden does sell a few plants to its summer visitors and you might be lucky. Alternatively, you could experiment with the near- equivalent call ed B engal Beauty, which is listed by a few supplies in The Plant Pm- der. The one. Langlbonas Planter? In Essex, has me and it sounds very similar, although perhaps more pink than crimsou- I^ngtharussays it grows easily although not neatly, and is fairly hardy. But demand has been dropping away and the nursery has reduced stock severely. The public overlooks It I think, because people often for- get that these roses grow so Hie coat of arms of the Duke of Newcastle - on the cover of the Decamber 6 auction catalogue for £87,000 in the late 1960s. But he recalls being involved in sales of manorial Htiea in Essex and Suffolk in the 1950s when they sold for around £150. Hurley Lloyd Thorpe, in StOw-an-the-Wold, Gloucester- shire, held an auction of 32 titles in the summer, its first since 1990. which, it says, “went very well". The s a l e tnrhiHed titles sub- mitted by Magdalen College, Oxford, which raised nearly BBOfiOO towards a new student hostel The colleges are often a source of titles that may have come to them with the endow- ment of land. London agent Cluttons has a batch of titles in Essex, Buck- inghamshire and Oxfordshire which it is offering on behalf of New College, Oxford. No guide prices are quoted but there is a minimum of 55J50Q, plus a buy- er’s premium of 10 per cent Many agents now charge this premium on title sales, and with solicitor’s fees and VAT, a 25,000 pur chase mi ght cost just over £6^)00 altogether. The lordship erf the manor of Flushing, a waterside village opposite Falmouth in Corn- wall, went to auction in 1990 and is now being offered as a private treaty sale by Strutt & Parker's office in Lewes, East Sussex, for a guide price £6,000. It brings with it the right to ininp tin anti antimony. The same agency plans to auction 20 Sussex titles, the property of two families, in February. There are probahly between 19,000 and 20,000 manorial lord- ships in En gland and Wales and 4,000 feudal baronies in Scotland, says Robert Smith, chairman of the Manorial Soci- ety of Gkeai Britain. Tin Queen, the Church Com- missioners, the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, and the Dukes of Devonshire and Northumberland are among owners of hundreds of mano- rial titles. Varying numbers of docu- ments can come with these titles - court rolls (listing pro- ceedings at manorial courts), surveys, plans. Although there is no bar an foreign buyers, no historic documents can be taken out of the country. Indeed, all buyers are encour- aged to put them in public record offices for safe keeping. In any case, as an archivist remarked drily, framed and hung on a wall they would quickly farta Buyers of titles can join the 1,500 strong Manorial Society and attend functions such as its annnai conference, B«>ld in eme of the Oxford colleges, and meetings at the House of Com- mons and the House of Lords. Occasionally, the rights that come with manorial titles attract headline attention. One in the Channel Islands (a sei- gnory), auctioned in London, brought with it the right for the owner to escort the sover- eign whenever a royal visit was Tnada to Guernsey. The lordship of Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, con- fers on tire owner the right to act as precentor, or choirmas- ter, at St Paul’s Cathedral, London. Many buyers, even those who tdl friends they bought their lordship “just far ftm". tend to visit and attend their manor's grafa! events. A woman who won the lord- ship of Brighton, worth £50,000, in a newspaper competition, was expected to sell it and take the money. Instead, she kept it and joined the Manorial Soci- ety. A Californian who bought a Suffolk lordship for £7,000, spent £150,000 on a peal of four bells and reinforcing the tower of tiie manor’s cHm -ph. On one occasion British Nuclear Fuels Ltd and Green- peace competed for ownership of the lordship of Calder, in Cumbria, which mrhiflefl the site of Sellafidd nuclear pro- cessing plant BNFL won - at a price £40.000. ■ The December 6 auction is at Stationers Hall, Ave Maria Lane, London EC4M TDD, at ■2.30pm. □ Contacts: Manorial Auction- eers, 0171-582 1588: Hurley Lloyd Thorpe. 01451-830731 ; Cluttons. 0171-408 1010; Strutt & Parker (Lewes office), 01273475411. Cadogan’s Place /Gerald Cadogan Laying a nest N esting not invest- ing” is the current phrase being used in the housing market to describe the change in home buyers’ atti- tudes since the 1980s. The 1960s, when making a turn on the deal was so often the reason for moving house, are being seen as an aberra- tion. Yet nesting is about making a nest egg as well as creating a home and house- hold and for most people mortgages are the way to lay that egg. Although the tax advan- tages of mortgages have shrunk, the monthly disci- pline of mortgage-related pay- ments remain an effective way of converting income into capitaL It enables home- buyers to start with little and reach middle-age or retire- ment owning a property that will be a significant asset In a alack buying market mortgage providers are awash with funds. The blan- dishments offered to buyers fndhirie naghhanlcH , initial low interest rates, free surveys and no application fees. New tax-efficient schemes of pen- sion and personal equity plan (Pep) mortgages have appeared in an attempt to compensate for the reduced income tax relief on interest (Miras). But customers should be aware of the risks of such schemes. Nationwide’s recent hous- ing finance review points out that in the current era of static or falling prices, nega- tive equity and low inflation, buyers have less incentive to gear up, as the house may be worth less when they selL They are more likely to reduce the rise of their loan and pay it back mare quickly than before. “It could be argued that the 25-year mort- gage was very much a prod- uct of the high inflation of the 1970s,” says the review, when the burden of paying interest entailed lengthening the mortgage to niake early payments manageable. When they review lenders’ special offers, borrowers should look hard at the condi- tions and penalties. They all aim to hook the borrowers and ensure - partly through inertia - that they stay with the lender for the long-term, paying full variable rates (now typically 7.99 per cent). Borrowers may see a chance to remortgage and reduce their outgoings or increase their loan, but penal- ties are stiff for redeeming a loan during the term of a low- interest offer or for some years afterwards. Bristol & West, for instance, has been offering a one-year fixed rate of 0.95 per pwit, which then changes to the variable rate. Redeem it during the year - or up to the year 2000 - and a penalty of 3 months foil interest awaits. Expect also to pay a fee for taking out a fixed rate mort- gage. Endowment mortgages are now less popular, partly because returns have fallen and partly because borrowers can now see how much of their premium ends up as commission. But there is no reason why a well-run life fund, says Nationwide^ should not con- tinue to be a good repayment vehicle in a time of low infla- tion, when lower Interest rates on the loan offset any far hi ghw premiums to ensure the right pay-out at the of the term. A mortgage protection pol- icy may be wise, now that social security does not pay mortgage benefit for the first ninp months of qualifying - and people of high net worth will not qualify anyway. One option is to take out a policy to cover the first nine or 12 months, on the expectation that regular payments can be resumed before the time runs out At a monthly rate of £4^6 per £100 of monthly pay- ment for nine m onths ' protec- tion, or £5£l for 12 months, that is better than plundering the school fees. Rosa MntabBs: a ‘•erambtod mew of orange and red* but with good connections ph u wgapn bom Ttty Fmmrto Row tmmt tatnon Africa’s new big game well in deep pots. I recommend this use of than to anyone in a small town garden cur on rotten rose soil, like mine. Yon can visit a friend whose roses you envy, dig UP Nocks of heavy, slimy clay, and pack them, into a deep pot so that a self-con- tained rose can Imag tnw ft is on ideal soft. You give it the expe- rience of being in Essex with- out the reality and, no doubt, it is gratafoL Either of the Bengal varieties would be good in a pot because they are so good Indoors at this iota point in the year. Other relations in tire Chinese sec- tion are almost as good, although no-one remembers them much nowadays and pot- planters are thinking already ofpoinsettias. In. some years, discoveries seem to go in pairs. Earlier this year, I collided with another Chinese variety which struck me as outstandingly beautiful. The borders in the great Somerset garden of Hadspen are colour-coded these days by their ingenious planters, the Popes. In the dark-red section, they grow a remarkable rose, Louis XIV, putting it in pots on either side of a gap in tee bor- der. Even tire heat of summer had not spoilt the {hints winch I saw and coveted in July. Lords XIV is sold more widely and coloured-even more deeply fan C rims on faip i The flowers ar e semi -double with the same pretty golden centres and are dusky, rich and velvety. A gain , thjg Chinese rose Is superb in a pot where It makes a gawky little plant about 2 ft high and wide without too many leaves. It is not totally hardy but it flowers on and on* suiting it exactly to treatment as a house plant in the later months Peter Beales does list this one and traces it to a French breeder In 11S9. These two discoveries have set me rhfnwng about other related possibilities. Better- known Chinese roses will also flourish in tote, especially the small, mid- pink Hermosa with its small, grey-green leaves. As they continue for months, they are excellent ideas as house plants when everyone else is reduced to the first sprigs of holly. The small- flowered, slckly-peteHed Irene Watte would be another easy accompaniment, a small rose about 2ft high and wide with very double pinky flowers. Fired by my Bengal Crimson (which might be Bengal Beauty), I think people with town gardens would like the idea of China roses in pots, first on their paving-stones outdoors and then undo: cover for another six weeks until the worst of the central heating caxses the leaves to drop off. Continued from Page I beep six fetal accidents involv- ing wild animals tins yean four had been killed by elephants and one died after bring gored by a buffalo. Last year, five people died from elephant attacks. Although the protection of animals from poachers - espe- cially rhinoceros and elephant - has drawn a great deal of international attention, envi- ronmentalists are mare wor- ried by the encroachment of human settlements in wilder- ness areas. "We do have poach- ing, but a lot of it is just for food and meat,” said Anderson of the Malilangwe Conserva- tion Trust The reserve employs 40 secu- rity guards to protect wild ani- mals from poachers. “But our aim is for local people to regard this property as an asset If they realise that tour- ism Is a vehicle to create jobs, then their attitudes to the ani- mals win change,” Anderson said. The trust finances new facili- ties for local schools and encourages school groups to visit the reserve to help develop local children's aware- ness Of the bUSh, its animate and conservation. It also sup- ports higher research for post- graduate students and has made its facilities available for wildlife artists. “Artists are important far conservation. We feel they communicate more directly with the public,” Anderson said. At Chizarira Wilderness Lodge - on the boundary of the remotest and wildest park in Zimbabwe, high on the Zam- bezi escarpment - Steve and Sharon Alexander participate in the Campfire programme. Short for Communal Area Management Plan for Indige- nous Resources, this radical project set up in the 1980s is seeking to redistribute some of the funds generated by tourism to s upp ort rural communit ies and help preserve wildlife. “The idea is to show the indigenous Batonka people how they too can benefit from wildlife,” Alexander said. “They receive 15 pa- cent of the income from the lodge. We also sell their crafts in the lodge and buy goats and vege- tables from them." The majority black popula- tion has shown little interest in the predominantly white dominated safari business. “Going an a game drive is not ; tbrir idea of fun or spending j money. It’s an industry they do not irnito prtHnri ar>d therefo re . do not promote as they should. It’s also the case of the govern- ment,” said one veteran white guide. “But as this business booms everybody wants a slice of the action." This is already causing a new set of tensions within the country’s expanding tourist industry. “The problem is that a very poor black population is looking at a rich affluent tour- ist population eating bacon and butter,” said one camp owner. “The very rich are tak- ing over the industry of the future and there has so far been not very much in it for the locals. Inevitably this causes a lot of resentment” As the financial stakes rise, the Zimbabwe government is promoting an increasing policy of uufigenisation, which many whites regard as a form of rac- ism in reverse. “Blacks are being given preference over whites in the exams to qualify as game park guides, and the authorities are increasingly favouring granting concessions to black people to run camps on national parks.” said another guide. These concessions axe given on a one, five or 10 year basis. And many white concession owners now fear that when their term Is up It will not be renewed. “This makes you think twice about how much you are prepared to invest in a safari business,” be added. The rhinoceros may after all have the last snort. ■ Paul Betts' visit to Zimbabwe teas arranged by Time For Africa, Air Safaris, which organises tailor-made safaris using small chartered amrafL Teh UK 01489-8785930, 0171-240 7585: Harare 726134. He flew to Harare on Air Zimbabwe. Teh OK 0171-491 0009. Oils in the study as well as the salad howl? You should he talking to Nat West Premiercare. Does ' your current home insurance company coB o Spode o spade? Con they tefl o Pissarro from Pointing By Numbers? If you ore currently paying £1,000 or more for your home insurance and you have wimble possessions, antiques, cotectoble^ or hefrtoom^ then you requfce o new land of insurance sauce thatmeets your specific needs. Whether or not you ore a NatWest customer, NatWest Premiercare provides exactly that - o premier service in every sense ond the fist of its kind to be offered by a major financial services provider. From your first phone cofl you wB be introduced to your own NotWest Premfercore Adviser who wH ded with every ospect of your insurance arrangements, from arranging a specialty negotiated portfolio of polities to managing ony claims on your behalf. tt only takes one conversation to discover the difference that NatWest Premiercare can make. Far o quotation, or information, cofl NatWest Premiercore todoy. And dscaver a rather more sophisticated approach to home Insurance. Call 0800 33 11 10 AND QUOTE REF, KBQ, MONDNnO FWCWr&fltWM TO 530PM SnUMMm 90 MM TO 400 m A NatWest More than just a bank ESatelUkd k^MHnhellDllIBblW ILfUuii OAc41 London (CT> IV r i FINANCIAL TIMES WEEKEND NOVEMBER 2S/NQVEMBER 26 1995 BOOKS T he Classics beak has been endan- gered as a species for at least half a century now. Evelyn Waugh drew his own affectionate portrait of the type in 1947, noting how his Ac- tional Mr Scott-King “found a peculiar rel- ish in contemplating the victories of bar- barism and positively rejoiced in his reduced station’’. A survey of the present survivors would reveal, however, a truly tough association of intellectual aristocrats. Neither Greek nor Latin has a niche in the current national curriculum, and Classics ought not to exist. Yet in the public schools, the subject is maintained, almost as the essence of tradi- tionalism. In state schools, devoted men and women give up their lunchtimes and Saturday afternoons to coach volunteers through their gerunds and participles. And so the torch is passed on, if by a tenuous relay. The charismatic Classicists Nigel Spivey on the intellectual rigours and spiritual benefits of Latin and Greek studies What manner of charisma do these Clas- sicists exude? John Dancy’s devoted biog- raphy of Walter Oakeshott. headmaster of Winchester after the war and subse- quently rector of Lincoln College. Oxford, provides perhaps typical clues- Oakeshott understood, while still a student himself what it meant for education to be a spiri- tual experience. Based upon the conviction of Plato, that academic efforts should ultimately be directed at finding what is beautiful and good. Oakeshott's own pedagogy knew no other discipline. Dancy notes: “All his life was short on brutishness." Whether parsing Greek verbs, explaining the steam engine or expounding the Metaphysical poets, it was always the same. “The job of education,” Oakeshott declared (quoting Dante}, "is to confront us with what Cost makes us spell- bound with wonder, and then leads us on to curiosity." Today’s teachers, wearily registering this principle from the perverse bondage of government-imposed paperwork, will wonder how Oakeshott taught a single les- son, let alone wrote monographs on medi- eval manuscripts. When did he sit down to do his spreadsheets? And yet no one could accuse Oakeshott of unworldhness. IQs study of the moral WALTER OAKESHOTT: A DIVERSITY OF GIFTS by John Dancy Michael Russell £24. 27 0 pages THE ANCIENT HISTORIANS by Michael Grant Duckworth £18.95, 486 pages debilitation caused by unemployment. Men Without Work, was first published in 1338, and remains a powerful report. The “diversity of gifts” manifested in the sheer range of Oakeshott’s activities is a lesson to ev er yone in the age of acade mi c over- specialisation. But Classicists, of course, ran do anything. The allegations Keith Joseph and others used to peddle about the evil redundancy of Classics in our edu- cation system wse nonsense. We see now. almost (but not quite) too lata, that what doomed Classics was its intellectual rigour. Nothing in the n a ti o nal curriculum today is even half as difficult as translating a page- of Thucydides. And that mmt» young people are r ea l isin g just how patronisingly easy we have made their schooltime is perhaps attested by the fact that Duckworth believes it worth reis- suing Michael Grant's introduction to Thucydides and his ilk. Grant has long been the supplier of books for beginners in Classics, and his survey here, covering both Greek and Homan historians, is typically dear and accessible. . . _ . He does not actually quote Schopen- haeur’s view, that if one reads the. work of the 5th-centary BC Greek Herodotus, one effectively need never to read any other history bookjat aDL Herodotus, in spite of his geography, recorded human, behaviour that ..tension: what happens subsequently is basically iations on a theme, tudy is justified on that r Oakeshott would have i is everything in these This is a fact which our innovative forebears •than us. the limits everything requires co: elsewhere repetition, or But Grant's basis. As Wal appreciated, Classical wri enterprising understood Dedicated follower of fashion But this book offers trimmings rather than substance, argues Joan Smith I n recent years there have been anthologies, or literary com- panions as they are more grandly called, of everything from dogs to London to office life. Why not one of fashion? The obvious objection is that fash- ion is ephemeral; nothing dates more quickly than yesterday’s clothes. Lists of what people wore to the royal court in the 1600s or balls in the 1920s do not make riveting reading, unless - like Colin McDow- ell, who is a fashion historian - you have a professional interest In the subject Here, to make the point is part of a description of the corona- tion or George Y in 1911 from the Selected Letters of Somerville and Ross : “Hammer-cloths of every hue. heavy with gold, and coats of arms - THE LITERARY COMPANION TO FASHION by Colin McDowell Swduh-Steraatm £20. 452 pages footmen with long beatle backs, same as hammer-cloth - each coach- man in a ball of glory, in the hollow centre of his hammer-cloth". How many contemporary readers know what “hammer-cloth" is or was? How many will be fascinated to discover that Lord Redesdale “wore a swallow-tailed blue coat with brass buttons, a white necktie and shoes tied with a bow of black ribbon" in the lS50s. when it was starting to appear old-fashioned? Descriptions of clothes have limited appeal because it is not the garments them- selves that are interesting but the fantasies entwined with them - the hopes and aspirations which trail behind a new dress like ail invisible train. Olio of (he must poignant extracts in The Literary Companion to Fash- ,-i 7 ; comes from a short story by Jean Rhys, in which a visitor to the Paris apartment of a dowdy American woman discovers a cupboard full of ravishing dn-sses. The narrator ima- gines tile elation as each garment arrives and the failure of nerve that condemns it to the dark interior of ihe owner’s wardrobe: ‘’Miss Bruce would pul o» the powder. the Rouge- F.isc motion, the rouge for the lips, lastly the dress - and she would gaze uito the glass at a transformed self . . No impassible thing, beauty and all that beauty brings. There close at hand, to be clutched if one dared. Somehow she never dared, next morning.” Somewhere in the depths of most people’s closets hangs a mistake. Sometimes the full scale of the disas- ter does not reveal itself until too late, when the offending garment is already on public display, as hap- pened to the unnamed heroine in Daphne du Maurier’s novel Rebecca. “They all stared at me like dumb things”, she shudders, recalling her appearance in a brand new dress before her first big party . . . In this case, the naive second wife of the aristocratic Max de Winter has been tricked Into copying the ball gown worn by her detested pre- decessor, Rebecca, on a similar occa- sion. More often, in these pages, men and women are caught out by vanity or self-delusion. “By-the-by”. remarks Mr Poo ter with forced casu- alness in The Diary of a Nobody. “I will never choose another cloth pat- tern at night”. His new suit, which seemed “a quiet pepper-and-salt mix- ture” when he selected the fabric, has turned out to consist of “a lot of green with bright yellow-coloured stripes". The humiliation of getting it wrong is best expressed by Virginia Woolf, who catalogues in painful detail a character's slow realisation at a fashionable party that she is wearing a completely unsuitable out- fit Furious with herself for caring about what other people think, Mabel “issued out into the room, as if spears were thrown at her yellow dress from all sides . . . she looked foolish and self-conscious, and sim- pered like a schoolgirl and slouched across the room, positively slinking, as if she were a beaten mongrel . . ." Such episodes are a potent illustra- tion of human vulnerability and the role played by fashion in disguising or exposing it. They also give the lie tu the moralists’ view that clothes do not matter. These insights, though, emerge only occasionally from an anthology which consists of the briefest of introductions followed by an uneven (and sometimes undated) assortment of extracts. It offers trim- mings rather than substance, rein- forcing the very myth of fashion as an essentially trivial subject which needs to be demolished in order to justify its own existence. WiD Leon Bakst's 1909 costume design lor Ida Rubinstein as Cleopatra: one of 330 illustra ti ons from “Leon Bakst and the Balets Russos” (Academy Editions £35, 228 Charles Spencer's study of the Me and Influential worlc of the great designer which ptaoas him finwty in the context of the art renaiss an c e of StavoptriBsm. T he brain uf a film- maker must he u frightening thing. like the liver nf an alco- holic nr the larynx or an opera singer. As these (luxe books «lww. it is iviistiintly exercised by contrary forces. A movie auteur must first cudgel him- self to produce an idea; then he must pn mind cudgelling oth- ers into funding it. co-making it. promoting it. Wonsley Clarkson’s Quentin Tcmiiuno: Shooting From The Hip is a wonderful primer on God. Mammon and the film business. The director of Reser- voir Does and Pulp Fiction was the product uf a broken home, a boyhood obsession with hor- ror comics, n brief spell in jail (for unpaid traffic fines) and an early career as a video shop assistant The auspices were hardly encouraging. Tarantino tried acting, but was a forgettable Romeo (see picture on page 43). He tried getting behtnd-camera jobs in Hollywood, but came 110 further than assistant on a Dolph Lundgren workout video. Then finally it hap- pened. He ran into a producer at a party and motormouthed himself Into a deal to make - for a historic shoestring - Res- ervoir Does. The rest is legend. Clarkson writes ns Tarantino serrenwrites. in a cata ratting hip prose full of movie refer- ences. But what a story' this is. A boy born to ltalian-lrish- Cberoket? parents grew into an ungainly six-foot-two giant who cannot spell but who bad on obsession with pop and con- sumer culture. During car jour- Time for close-ups nevs at age two. Mom recalls, young Quentin would try to read aloud every billboard and advertisement they passed: "He even recognised logos. It was a real pain, but I guess it showed what way he was headin' But which way was that? Even we Tarantino-glutted film critics are not sun? where he has ended up: apart from being rich and famous. Is he the War- holian chronicler of a junk Zeit- geist? Is he an unprecedented purveyor of screen violence? (As a child he would leave his toy soldiers in varied states of amputation for his mother to piece together again.) Is he a mordant, modern-dress Jaco- bean wit? We certainly do not go to him for cuddly stories, nor does Clarkson. The most chill- ing tale is of Tarantino's sum- mary sacking - late on the day of the 1993 Los Angeles earth- quake - of the personal man- ager who had helped lilt him from obscure beginnings. She remembers bis last words: “Your job was to launch my career and now that my career is launched I don't need you spect for protocol and polite- ness on screen, which makes his films the cinema’s wittiest, liveliest modern equivalent to shock therapy. After this, reading Sidney Lumet's Making Modes is like emerging from an acid party into a bacon-and-eggs break- QUENTIN TARANTINO: SHOOTING FROM THE HIP by Wensley Clarkson Pinkos £1099. 500 pages MAKING MOVIES by Sidney Lumet Bloomsbury £14.99. 220 pages FELLINI ON FELLrNI edited by Costanzo Costantini Fafor £15.99.201 pages any more. Callous? tot doubt. But maybe that callousness also gave us the crusading disre- fast. Chapter by chapter the director of Tadve Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Nencork and a dozen other household titles takes us through the tri- als and triumphs of film-mak- ing: from first read-through to designing, shooting, editing, previewing . . . Fascinatingly. Lumet illus- trates his craft points with his own production reminiscences. You will learn why he made Katharine Hepburn slap Dean StockweD in Long Day's Jour- ney Into Night, why and how he used real street crowds in Dag Day, why he showed only one shot of the sky in the whole three hours of Prince Of The City, and why he got Sean Connery to “do a Groucho” in Family Business. Nothing to do with zany one-linos. It was a way of making the six-foot-two Scotsman use a stooping walk for shots shared with the five- foot-sis: Dustin Hoffman. Federico Fellini would have scorned such ruses. Incongru- *] hies were the staff of life. Fel- lini On FeUdti is a book-length colloquy between the Master and film critic and close friend Costanzo Costan tini. (in the rush to print after a genius's death we most take all these “dose friends" on trust) We go from Federico’s first sexual experience aged seven with a housemaid to his apo- theosis as Italy's most feted film-maker. On the way we ponder such gems as his mem- orable description of Donald “Casanova" Sutherland - “a big sperm-full waxwork with the eyes of a masturbator” - and his account of clashing temperaments on La Dales Vita and £-a. Finally there is his politely acid answer to a ques- tion on immortality. “Belief in it stimulates and encourages the Imagination, " he says, “even if the prospect of still being interviewed by you on my 7.000th birthday might cause me some perplexity.” Nigel Andrews Fiction / Carolyn Hart Sagas at bedtime L ike sliding Into a hot bath on a chilly night. Casting Off, the fourth part of Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet chronicles, provides a happy retreat from the weary vicissitudes of mod- em life. In exchange, you get life circa 1947, a not especially attractive period setting with Its food rationing, awful res- taurant meals, bombed-out London houses and exasper- ated women wringing their hands over the amount of cooking they are suddenly expected to do. But this Is the charm of Howard’s Immense undertaking: a family saga, spanning 10 years over four books, which revels in the mundane. Even the title of this volume is pitched somewhere between setting sail and finish- ing a line of knitting. The central characters are remarkable for their wholesale lack of glamour. Excitement for the Cazalet family is a refurbished room. Drama m eans the loss of a secretary. Even the extra-marital affairs - and there are plenty - are conducted not with passionate energy but with a kind of grim determination, often laced with tragedy. True love, you can bet on it is either nipped in the bud by death, or never con- summated. And the younger generation fore no better. They have to steer a narrow path between yesterday's moral cer- tainties and the harsher codes of post-war Britain. Only Louise, married to a portrait- painter called Michael, re tains any glamour, being rich and beautiful - but her exotic life- style has been acquired at the expense of happiness. For she CASTING OFF by Elizabeth Jane Howard Macmillan £15.99, 496 pages THE GOSSIPS by Teresa Wangfa Sinckdr-Stevason £12.99. 224 pages is a wreck with a baby and a truly horrifying mother-in-law. All this must make Casting Off sound as grey as the coffee served in 1940s restaurants. But for those who have maA» the journey of 1,500 or so pages, Howard exerts the sarm» old magic that turned the first three volumes into bestsellers Leaving the war behind has given her story a new lease of life. The family, as well as the country, is picking up the pieces, and the' narrative threads are gathered in with confidence. Teresa Waugh's new novel. The Gossips, both in terms of plot and length, could hardly be more concise. Annie, the fortyisb single mother of Tam, sin. ditches one lover in favour of another. In doing so she becomes the innocent victim of a harem of vicious gossips led by her friend Sarah, a disaf- fected housewife. And that's it. really. Like Alice Thomas Ell fe. in her ear- lie: novels, Waugh comes into her own when describing the clen ched fury of women being driven slowly mad by bullying husbands and irresponsible children. In her portrayal of Amue, she has created some- thing of a modem day heroine: a woman who, when l unching with her former husband, feels an overwhelming urge “to take her plate of fish and press it slowly into his foce...” Yes, I think that is a sce- nario with which many of us could sympathise. Whole new vistas on the Waugh family open up before you, but it is 15-year-old Tamsin who really feals the show. Heavenly to look at, rude, belligerent but essentially generous of spirit she is the sort of character who comes straight from the neart It is she who turns this TOoUy forensic study of fil- tered relationships into a gen- ujnely human comedy. ’.Vi iyo\±£te o Ob era F oifeet the overblown co nparisons with Di Jtens and Zola: . T( xy Pratchett is the Barbara C rtland of the fantasy fiction world, a pablishingphenomeuon gleefully cmrning out cheerful, ei iy-to-read books to a formula \ hidr has been tried, testa and found to be hugely pro: table. Like two birds of his 30-odd books. Mas erode is set in the picaresque, ircbaic metropolis of Ankh-Mc pork in the Discworld, ; comical , - ' hotch-potchbf dwarfs, . witches, frogs and heroes. In Pratchett book the (failed) to introduce bis dedicai suggests was inspired attempt of him to opera. Pratchett’s as a writer delight he characters to Ignore the and logic. His it strengths the infectious, ip his - - his willingness of writing (or MASKJgADE by Terry P-atchett Gotland £1556(285 pages dwarfish or trollfe) sympathy r for the underdog extends even * to the villains, anUie has a particular relish ft schoolboy humour. Thus his haracters speak like banterbg comedians and theiage is tittered with daft joes - sometimes relevanttyften not Wild claims have ben made about the insight hearings to bear on our world tfough his fantasy realm, but tie. truth is he is Just a good-notod, mildly irreverent faster. With its blend of thejptWc and the ludicrous, tbopera Is a natural target for hm. In Maskerade Gram? Weatherwax and Nany Ogg. two cantankerous but . golden-hearted witche^are seeking an apprentice pmake up a coven and break e their squabbles. The most fihly candidate, the big-voied, huge-bodied Agnes Nltthas joined the Ankh-Morpofc opera only to find hers* - playing second fiddle to he beautiful but on talented. Christine. Meanwhile the opera’s resident ghost is IriDing , - people, much to the dismy of the new owner, a parvem cheese-maker who believe, la u gh ably, that opera shofti make both sense and a prfit Promptly, the dear old withes set to work to save Agnes ud , the opera in a story that ; % vaguely promotes the idea f happiness through self-acceptance. No tedious philosophy or- - r social comment is ever allowed to get in the way ol the jokes for long, tfanng h. ; Pratchett pokes sixouitaneot ftm at the pretension of oper- and the coarseness of those t " who want art to run like a business. He lampoons the witches and the hapless Agnes , while generating sympathy for them as outcast from the world of the beautffl and keepers of ancient wisdom. Even the curiously visual diffhangers in his plots take a back seat whenever there is a joke to be told or a pun to be punted. Maskerade is brisk, pleasing and shallow, a bit of a laugh. You do not exactly immerse yourself in a Discworld book - rather, yon paddle through it at speed, constantly amused hut seldom really stimulated. With an entire fantasy world at his disposal, Pratchett can 1 continue to expand on his basic premise indefinitely, and Maskerade differs radically A from the previous Discworld* books only in Its setting. The 20th tn the series, it will doubtless sell as well as the first. Nick Curtis ,1"' ; 1 * ! ^ - L ‘ .\Ul *"*■,-■ ~ l ;k'" p 1 •■■ ■' ' M.'X'" i'* if/ .. s’y ^ 1 .. , . ..xt ‘h*V • ■.*. ■ ; ! ' . -I r J ' ,-tF- . ..•»!• ' • ,• -r-J- • -> »*'*' . i, . •' 1 -It ' ■ .)• ‘ ..I* .... i - • ...I:'" * Gre KtiiluTfo* P . . V 1 ... 1 1 G.- • ' V; .. ■■VC. 1 - '•••■ Man < Mdki in'J.:V* wi'M’f n - .v; V-r i.ii . ■t ;• ■ ?*£,/... ***&:.- - -sr*: . rfc'J-r.! tr j? 3 mi- 2£*vr. : .. .. *>.*■<: ■ t^h- ... . 55;;:: 0 '--?n -i. , Akh'.. .'*W toll,. JhV-:". -ItlN (i. - • . UK'' .V X -‘ *r.7 c - a 5»i ■&:; '■ ■ r..., .. : m ^ 1 iyo BOOKS urns - / S*fc XT3&:. *■>4*2 " T he Lamentable History of King Charles m Is played ont in the media tSeJSHS yet — — «««•.«*« tuia nimnw i" will be a tragedy or a farce. It is eyen unclear what parts the prtad- ple protagonists are playing; the princess has been virgin bride. 5S°?!| charity worker, single and of late, tale-teller. Will she remain in the plot as ambassa- dor or queen, or will she he locked up a victim of “advanced para- 22®" 7 . T** «P°ny«ous hero, on the ote hand, has undertaken a some- what tempestuous voyage, steering a route between the seething vee£ table patch of eco-crankery and the mwinde of modern archttecture. But now he has a new helmsman to steer bun back towards his countrv and his destiny: Shakespeare. * For king, country and culture Nick Groom finds something in Shakespeare for ‘all conditions of men* The Prince's Choice is The Prince of Wales' slim Shakespearean ethol ogy. Available as a book or a it offers 33 extrac ts from 20 WW and one sonnet, performed ra the CD and cassette tape by a truly outstanding cast of excited luvvles. It win doubtless be slipped into th e Christmas stockings of everyone who would like to follow the broadcast of the Queen's Speech with her son's rendition of Prince Hal (aka the Prince of Wales). TOte passages selected are, as they should be, very familiar — Hamlet’s soliloquies, John of Gaunt’s lament “This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle”, Lear on the heath, Henry Vs St Crispin’s Day rally, Prospero’s farewell - but neverthe- less they give the work a strong sense of character. The book is divided into chapters which cover Shakespeare's heroes and his com- mon touch, his humorous poetry and his depictions of misery. He is a poet who offers insights into pub- lic life, leadership ami the nation. There is nothing from Romeo and Juliet here, nor from Measure for Measure ; there is no Sonnet 18. There are some surprises. Ulysses’ THE PRINCE’S CHOICE by HRH The Prince oif Wales Hodder & Stoughton £12. W, 137 pages speech on degree In Troihis and Oessstio, which would have neatly complemented the theme of soda! order, is absent, but there are two unexpected extracts from Corio- lanus. There could be mare from Lear, but that might have been impolitic: Shakespeare is an unfor- giving playwright and bends not easily to narrow interpretation. The Prince’s Shakespeare does not saturate his works in unneces- sary violence and the necessary abuse of power, revel in corruption and subversion, or wander the lonely byways of theological doubt, spiritual yearning, loss, or love. He is a muscular Christian of a Shakespeare. Like Emit (in Lear). he is a loyal courtier. He is not a swashbuckling Romantic striking postures of madness, having it away with the neighbour’s daugh- ter and poaching game; neither does he write neo-Platonic sonnets to his homosexual lover. But this is an easy game to play. Shakespeare really is so rich and complex and ambiguous that there is indeed something In his works for “all conditions of men” - which Is Prince Charles's point. The modest agenda of this entirely laudable cultural manifesto is hie thee into the libraries and theatres and par- take of the Bard. So The Prince's Choice is rather more than an anthology. Its barely invisible subtext positively grabs the attention: the union of Prince Charles and William Shakespeare; a marriage between the royal heir and the immortal Swan of Avon, thus securing the cultural succes- sion of the House of Windsor. The Prince's Choice legitimates king, country, and culture by uniting all under the banner of the Bard. It is a very definition or Englishness. The Prince’s Choice is not going to reverse any western intellectual trends, but the simple faith pres- ented here, of Shakespeare as a phi- losopher’s stone that will torn cul- tural dross into gold, might just remind us that there are more things in heaven and earth. Hora- tio. than are dreamt of in your post-modernity. But we must wait to see whether it might perform its alchemy in the estranged worlds and tangled plots of The Lamentable History of Charles D3. Green talk Malcolm Rutherford on one man's view of history P aul Cruttwell is not its c ha llenging title History out admits some diminution of a modest m an. The of Control. erty and democracy in the ] best chapter in this Hegel is obliging from the cess, but it would be a p hook consists of an start: “We entirely endorse the worth paying in order to bi imaeinarv svmrvi- Mnplnalnvii rannk.J Ivn U> V 1_ «... P aul Cruttwell is not a modest man The best chapter in this book consists of an imaginary sympo- sium after a long weekend at his house in the west of England. The principal partici- pants are G J. Hegel, Oswald Spengler, Arnold Toynbee and H.G. Wells. Conspicuously not invited is # Francis Fukuyama, probably because he is still alive. A more surprising absentee is Thomas Mai thus, the man who warned at the end of the 18 th century of the danger of the world’s population outstrip- ping available resources and is something of a Cruttwell hero. What the participants have in common is that they all wrote a theory of history. Their theoriestended to treat west European -American civil- isation as superior and, with the exception of Spengier, were broadly optimistic. Fukuyama brought the tradition up to date when he wrote in The End of History and the Last Man of the triumph of liberal democ- racy just before the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The purpose of the gathering is to ask the old masters whether they would have writ- ten as they did, had they been alive today, and to conduct the discussion in the light of the draft of Cruttwell ’s book with its c ha llenging title History out Of Control, Hegel is obliging from the start “We entirely endorse the conclusions reached by Ur Cruttwell ” The corrective mechanisms foreseen by the old historians, he says, “have yet to operate or seem to have become strangely suspended”. This applies particularly to population growth and the renewal or replacement of resources. What then are Crattwell’s conclusions? He thinks that the control of population is now imperative in all parts of the globe and at one stage HISTORY OUT OF CONTROL by Peter Cruttwell Green Books £16.95, 240 pages appears to re commend compul- sory ste rilisa tion after the age of 25. He is opposed to free trade in that it encourages the exchange of frivolous goods like “Michael Jackson posters, substitutes for mother’s milk and Mari boro cigarettes”, and he regards the latest Gatt round as “mad”. He wants the restoration of the nation state, which he claims collapsed in 1918, and the introduction of a form of “autarky” which would give such states control over their own affairs. There would be, he admits, some diminution of lib- erty and democracy in the pro- cess, but it would be a price wrath paying in order to bring history back into order. Make what you will of aD that Cruttwell is a former min- ing anil rhemiralg man, and his thesis is heavily based on the growing pollution of air and water and the depletion of oil. Yet he insists that this is not just another book about environmental danger it is a view of history, no less. There are some useful insights along the way. The author believes that some- where between 1914 and 1945 the world began to change fun- damentally. and not just because of war. He cites the Marxist historian, Eric Hobs- bawm, in his support The rea- son was that discoveries in sci- ence, technology and industry were on a greater scale than ever before. They enabled global reach, and multi-na- tional corporations - more powerful than governments - to matrh I should add one rider. George Orwell predicted in 1984 that the growth of com- munications would make a totalitarian state almost impregnable. Yet it was pre- cisely the rise of communica- tions like the small transistor that made such states vulnera- ble. Cruttwell is a bit too sure at himself. ' Man of marble D popular s] Michelangelo deserves better, writes Brian Sewell her fath® 0 Christ Cl M ichelangelo, coloured air their distances, by-year record, it and every Her early supreme painter, painted swirling chaos and the other extended topic is frag- to her n sculptor and solid mass of architecture, and men ted into incoherence. articulate architect of the conceived anew the moment of By implication we are prom- Ing at th M ichelangelo, supreme painter, sculptor and architect of the High Renaissance, whose vocabulary of splendid nudes informed a thoukind later art- ists as various as Blake and Rubens, was bom near Flor- ence in 1475. The generation of Pkxentinc artists to whom he owed his training were urbane masters of their trades, con- tentedly obedient to educated patrons spiritual and temporal, whose work tended to consoli- date the exploratory achieve- ments of the earlier Quattro- cento. pleased enough to confirm established ground rather than break beyond its boundaries, and to occupy a plateau of serenity. From these Michelangelo soon stood apart By the age of 33, he was the genius who could conceive and carve the Pictn that is in St Peter’s - a work of such tech- nical brilliance in the cutting of the marble, of such breautn and movement in the composi- tion of stilled figures, of such dramatic sympathy, compas- 4tan and strength in resjCp**' tion. demanding unparalleled empathv from the spectator that it swms to have no con- nection with the Quattrocento, but to belong to world of Bemim in the ntn century. Ten years on, m as he began work on the ^ ing Of the Sistlne Chapel, there sprang from his imagination new notions of thchraojc nu as though from the Hellmism of unknown Pwipaino^ ^ 1 ^ tural in modelling, but tar exceeding the sculptor’s caponty for active form within the block; in these he new Weals of beauty, the color perfection of t u e touched with d,vl " 1 t S' s 0 r ancient pagan , nudity reborn in the sen the Church, and to invention he 20ns of perspective andmaoe coloured air their distances, painted swirling chaos and the solid mass of architecture, and conceived anew the moment of Creation. Michelangelo’s was a work- ing life of at least 75 years, the energy unrelenting to the last - the great nudes of painting and sculpture, the Medici Cha- pel, the Laurentian Library and St Peter's fixed in our memories. It is too long a life to capture in conventional biography, the threads of art, architecture, poetry, Neo-Plato- nism, patronage, political, social and church history, workshop practice, affectionate relationships, and the irksome horde of Buonarroti depen- dents, are too many for one volume of a mere 400 pages, and with so much to interrupt MICHELANGELO, A BIOGRAPHY by George Bull Penguin £25. 512 pages with brief paragraphs of expla- nation, to bring to life with the detail of the modem dramatist who must command a cast of thousands. Michelangelo him- self is the all but lost layer of a palimpsest The first two pages of the Introduction promise well, and a re an excellent prfecis - indeed one need only read pages xvii and xviii, for pages 1 to 417 are a desperate plod, pie reader interested in Michelan- gelo the artist must look else- where if he wants better than the descriptive etichfis of the journalist, but such nonsense would matter less if the book contained, for example, an intelligible account of MJcnfll- ongelo’s failure to execute the tomb of Pope Julius H - a wretched business j^emkd over many years in which the greatest funerary monument the Renaissance was whittled down to a feeble compromise - but in the Interests of a year- by-year record, it and every other extended topic is frag- mented into incoherence. By implication we are prem- ised discussion of Michelan- gelo’s “sexual orientation without evasion or embarrass- ment,” but the prurient will find nothing here beyond the hesitant literary nudge. He wrote songs, sonnets and laments, pfte n in sombre and despairing mood, some addressed to Vittorla Colanna, rich widowed Marchioness of Pescara, herself a poetess of mournful tenor, deeply reli- gions, with whom Michelan- gelo shared some profound spiritual affinity; in others he bad in mind T nmmas o Cavali- erf, a young nobleman whose physical beauty seemed to embody the ideals of the mar- ble David and the Sistlne nudes, far whom his affection may have been far less spiri- tual. His letters to CavaHerl illuminate the clouded rhetoric and Platonic imagery of the poems, but are not conclusive evidence of homosexual pas- sion and Its consequent mis- eries. His peers and contempo- raries in their amused Italian way believed Michelangelo to be the bedder of his workshop boys, and he might indeed have been a happier man had he given way to these sup- posed urgtags of his loins, but what small evidence there is can only be interpreted as of a mighty straggle to divert affec- tion from the flesh. In spite of Vittaria Colcnma's observation that those who know Michelangelo the man must hold him in greater esteem than any of his works. it was by his works that his contemporary biographers, Vasari, admiring artist and his- torian, and Concfctvi, affection- ate pupil and amanuensis, knew and measured him. It is by, in and through his works that we know him now, and the conventions of mortal biog- raphy seem scarcely relevant D orothy Leigh Sayers - creator of one of detective fiction’s most en daringly popular sleuths - was born on June 13 1883 in Oxford, where her father was headmaster of Christ Church choir school. Her early letters were written to her mother, and Sayers' articulate prose and fine spell- ing at the age of 6% would today cause marvel from a 15- year-okL It is tempting to dis- cern novel-writing talent in the fictionalising of toys and pets for her mother’s entertain- ment Sayers won a scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford, where she went up in 1912 as one of the first women schol- ars. Like Samuel Pepys, who hung from scaffolding in West- minster Abbey to report on the coronation of the restored Charles H, Sayers’s “splendid" seat at Oxford’s Encaenia of 1913 provided a perfect vantage point far her to describe the degree ceremony's partici- pants. The same occasion had at least two consequences for her mystery writing. The Newdi- gate poetry prise winner, Mau- rice Roy Ridley of Balliol, whom she and her companion “fell head over heels in love with”, became the prototype far her suave detective hero - although Sayers forgot this until she encountered Ridley again in 1935 and pronounced him ll the perfect Peter Wlm- sey”. In addition. Encaenia pro- vided that most sublime of fic- tional marriage proposals, when at the end of Gaudy Night Lord Peter asks Harriet Vane the question Sayers heard addressed to the assem- bled doctors about degree can- didates, “Placet ne?" (Does it please?), and she returns its answer, “Placet” (It pleases). In August 1914, apparently innocent of any threat of war, Sayers and two companions set off to Tours, where they became unwitting witnesses to the outbreak of the first world war. “Frightfully excited" to find herself in the middle of events, she wrote home, “This thing is like a novel by H.G. Wells. The whole world is going to war, and it has bap- Lord Peter wins hands down Ann Geneva reads the letters of Dorothy Sayers peued in two days!” In June 1915 Sayers sat her exams and achieved a first class, and five years later was among the first group of women on whom an Oxford degree was officially conferred. After a short stint at teach- ing. she apprenticed under Basil Blackwell in Oxford to learn tbe publishing business. THE LETTERS OF DOROTHY L. SAYERS 1899-1 936; The Making of a Detective Novelist Edited by Barbara Reynolds Hodder & Stoughton £25, 420 pages and in 1916 Blackwells pub- lished a book of her poems. In 1918 a second volume was pub- lished. this time of somewhat unorthodox religious verse entitled Catholic Tales and Christian Songs. The irreverent familiarity with which Sayers treated Christian themes, and which years later was to scandalise much of England when the BBC broadcast her dramatisa- tion of the Easter week cycle, had already been evident in undergraduate letters home: “Having read two Gospels with more attention than I had ever before given to the subject 1 came to the conclusion that such a set of stupid, literal, pig- headed people never existed as Christ had to do with, includ- ing the disciples." With this book, Sayers was determined not to be at the mercy of reviewers. Far from being a late 20th-century invention, loading the public- ity dice in one’s favour was employed by Sayers and a friend, to whom she wrote sug- gesting that she first review it well in the Church Times and then “write a furious letter Dorothy L Sayers: precocious and indulged from ‘Pew-holder’ or ‘Via Media', wondering how they could possibly allow so much as the name of the vile produc- tion to sully their pages". She was certain this would “make the book go like wildfire". There followed a dismal period of unemployment in London, during which Sayers wrote her first Lord Peter WImsey novel. Whose Body? Writing to lira parents in 1921, she said:*! really haven't the least confidence in the stuff, which is a pity, because I really enjoy turning it out”. She was 28. During the same year Sayers met and fell deeply in love with an American writer of Russian origin named John Cournos, who was to prove her emotional and sex- ual nemesis. Precocious and indulged as she had been from an early age. Sayers both underesti- mated the power of her emo- tions and overestimated her powers of attraction. Insisting he did not love her and would never marry anyone, Cournos suggested they become lovers; Sayers refused to use contra- ception, and the affair remained iiTtcnn«nimrrtated Lord Peter ultimately proved the more enduring companion, as Cournos soon returned to the US and married a widowed mother of two who wrote detective fiction. Sayers's sub- sequent letters to Cournos make painful reading indeed, hi the interval, Sayers had had an affair with a motor mechanic which produced a child whom she kept hidden from family and friends for the remainder of her life. She poured into her letters to Cour- nos all the accusations, misery and feelings she censored in others: “The one thing worse than bearing the child of a man you hate would be being condemned to be childless by the man you loved.” Her usual fierce pride and privacy dis- solve as she tells him: “If 1 saw you, I should probably only cry - and I’ve been crying for about three years now and am heartily weary of the exercise.” The remaining years see Say- ers married to a journalist, becoming famous as a writer of detective fiction, and her letters take us to the year 1936 with her play Busman s Honey- moon enjoying a succesful run in the West End. A second volume is evidently to follow. Yet both Sayers's breezily anodyne letters and her few wracked, chaotic, pas- sionate ones to Cournos make me question the wisdom of publishing these letters at alL For unlik e the Vitas, Vanessas and Virginias. Sayers does not evoke the life around her in letters, as she did so effectively in her novels. Nor does she place the reader in a cultural centre as do the recently pub- lished letters of Mary McCarthy and Hannah Arendt. And far every glimpse of her detective fiction methodology there are dozens of perfunctory recitals of the day’s happen- ings. In her preface to the book. PJ3. James write: “All her life, the boisterous self-confidence and occasional exhibitionism guarded a heart that was both proud and stoical and capable of keeping its secrets." Pre- cisely. The literary merit of the remaining letters scarely seems to me to justify the mer- ciless exposure of this proud and stoics! wo man. LOOKING FOR A PUBLISHER? if so, please write for fell details, catalogue and reviews of our books to: The Book Guild Lid.. Editorial Office (FI72) 25 High Su Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 2LU. } * FINANCIAL TIMES Fascinating Tomes The FT mil publish its 1995 CHIRSTMAS BOOK REVIEW on Saturday 2nd December. For details on advertising opportunities please contact: Robert Hunt Tel: 0171 873 3576 or Fax: 0171 873 3098 % $ XVin WEEKEND FT FINANCIAL. TIMES WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25/NOVEMBER 26 1995 ARTS Treasures in Trust A t last, we can see the pictures, and not before time. How many of us. going round any National Trust house, have found ourselves leaning precar- iously over the restraining rope and cricking our necks to get a good look at what we read in the guide is the Van Dyck, the Gainsborough, the Titian in the corner of the room? We get the general feel- ing of the place well enough, but can we get dose enough to relish any single work for itself without making a fuss, and with no so-helpful attendant anxious at our elbow? Not very often. The great mass of the Trust's visitors, of course, wants little more than a vicarious indul- gence in the privileged life, a sense of times past, a cup of tea and a bun. Yet the succes- sive owners of the houses they come to see were so often the great patrons and collectors, to whom their collections, as col- lections. seemed almost the point of it all. What they brought together are among the principle glories of what the National Trust now holds. As Alastair Laing. who has curated this its centenary cele- bration at the National Gal- lery. wryly observes in his introductory note, the Trust itself “was perhaps slow to realise that it was becoming a significant owner and curator of paintings. Indeed, it some- times seems - as Seeley said of Britain's acquisition of an Empire - as if it had done so ‘in a fit of absence of mind"'. The theme is the setting of the country-house itself, and the shifts of taste and interest within the collections as they were put together, generation by generation, owner by owner, even into this century. The most modem work in the show, a glamorous Carolus- Duran of 1891, is of Mrs Ronnie Greville. shortly before her marriage. And she it was who, in 1942, in uniting all her pic- tures at Polesden Lacey, was the first to make a collection as such a central dement of a bequest to the Trust. The selection falls into six representative sections. The grand portraits command the large central gallery, with con- versation pieces, narrative pieces and landscape paintings off to one side and the ideal landscape, old masters and cabinet pictures off to the other. There are some sur- prises, and a quibble or two to make - sporting painting, for example, is barely represented. But every room holds real trea- sures. Mrs Ronnie, with her Sar- gent-like flourish, is terrific, and the G.F. Watts of Jane Senior trrom Wightwick Manor), of golden hair and pur- ple dress, kneeling on a chair to water her plants, is a One and charming example of a now too-much neglected artist The outstanding portrait by far is that of Frances Cranfield by Van Dyck (Knole), so fresh and pretty in her white silk dress, and one of the loveliest images of the cavalier court in the last years before the Civil War. There is little point in simply rehearsing the catalogue, but a show that goes on to include a fine Rembrandt portrait of a woman (Penrhyn Castle), a Velasquez of young Prince Bal- tasar Carlos with his dogs and gun (lekworth), and a quite magnificent Titian, of the Venetian senator. Francesco Savorgnan (Kingston Lacey) recommends itself. A mong other more recondite treats and curiosities fa the small copy of “Las Meninas ", by Juan del Mazo, the son-in-law and sometime pupil of Velasquez (Kingston Lacey), which was. for nearly 200 years, all that was known of the great but still secret original. Next door, Terborch's elegant officer bows to his lady, so demure and vir- ginal in white (Polesden Lacey), but is it a proposition he makes rather than an invi- tation to the dance? What song is it that the young man sings, that so charms Metsn’s wistful girl in blue, with her glass of wine at hand, and frisking dog beneath her feet? (Upton House). Hobbema's peasants wander down the muddy lane beside their cottage in the wood (Ascott). Asselijn’s traveller asks the buxom shepherdess the way across the ford (Ascott), though her anxious frown gives 'us leave to doubt that the question fa quite so aimple. Claude's distant idyllic landscape (Petworth) belies the frustration Jacob endures at the hands of Laban and his daughters. And how extraordi- nary in Its ordinariness, what a miracle of painterly deception in its naturalism, fa Bellotto’s view of the river Adige, as it flows through Verona (Powis Castle). These 72 paintings on show are to be celebrated and enjoyed. But they are but the tip of the iceberg, and when shall we see more? And where are the paintings of this, the century of the Trust’s own existence? Is the Trust to extend its collections to repre- sent that continuing history, after the pattern of those first owners and patrons? Are the properties and the collections now set in aspic, or does life go on? The National Trust's own Foundation for Art, set up 10 years ago to encourage artists to work at, and for, the proper- ties. suggests that indeed it does. We can only wait and see. William Packer In Trust for the Nation - paint- ings from National Trust Houses: the National Gallery, London WC2, until March 10. Sponsored by Barclays Bank. Mrs Jane Senior by GJF. Watts. : i Wi gh twi ck Manor a fine and c ha rm ing example of a too-neglected artist The siege of the Coliseum D onnis Marks, gen- eral director of the English National Opera, is a Falstaff- ian figure, naturally gregari- ous. At the moment be is not answering his phone. The ENO Is currently inhab- iting Portress Coliseum, buf- feted about by the storms caused by the sudden resigna- tion of its music director, Sian Edwards, and reports that the ENO wants to quit the Coli- seum, a building bought for it by David Meflor, acting as gov- ernment arts , minister, for 3m less than four years ago, for a purpose-built opera house somewhere in central London. The world of music criticism is having a field day, with reports that Marks and Edwards did hot exchange words far a year before her departure, and that the ENO hopes to raise money far its new home by selling file free- hold of the Coliseum to Sir Andrew Lloyd ‘Webber. Meanwhile the ENO goes about its business, unveiling a new production of Puccini’s Txmmdot, its first ever, on Wednesday night, to generous applause. The arrival of Turcrn- dot on the Coliseum stage pro- vides a template of contempo- rary opera management Part of Marks’s strategy is to introduce strong productions of popular operas, which can th en underpin the finances fo/r years to come. This failed last year when Don Oiouanm was roundly condemned, but worked wonderfully at the start of this season when Jona- than Mille r's Carmen attracted record box office takings of over elm. Tunmdot was planned as a long-r unning money-spinner. Marine wanted to adapt the San Francisco production, with designs by David Hockney, but it' would not fit the Coliseum stage. Hence the attraction of a move. In the event this Tunmdot is imported from the Welsh National Opera. After the Hockney fell through, the ENO approached the Belgian direc- tor, Guy Joosten. But he was responsible for the Don Gio- vanni so the ENO thought again, and the safe WNO pro- duction was brought in. His raised questions about the musical direction of the ENO, and whether Edwards, a lively young conductor but inexperi- enced in the workings of an opera house, had the confi- dence to stamp her personality on the Coliseum. Of the problems facing the ENO, finding a new music director is the less worrying. Although Edwards failed to make an impact, the inevitable consequence - an eclectic approach from many different directorial viewpoints - Is proving a success. This season audiences have climb ed to 82 per cent as against 60 per cent in 1993-94, when Marks Inher- ited a lacklustre repertoire. As well as the sold-out Car- men, both Rusulka and The Fairy Queen have exceeded their box office targets, and bookings are good for The Bar- ber of Seville and Tunmdot. The ENO made a surplus last season, which should be . repeated this year,: although any profits will make small inroads into an accumulated deficit of £Sulm. Of the likely candidates as music director, the popular choice Paul Daniel, ah ENO graduate now making a suc- cess of Opera North, was ini- tially reluctant to move south but is still bang chased The alternatives are safe names like David Atherton: and Rich- ard Hickox, while James Lock- hart could be a stop-gap choice. Boosted by higher audiences, improved finances, and an exciting new mode director, Marks would be in a strong position to dismis his critics. But his abrasive style of man- agement could cost him dear in his long term plans -to trans- form the Coliseum. I nitially the Idea was to redevelop the existing site. A superficial facelift would cost gfam hut do nothing to improve the anti- quated back stage facilities. Instead the board , wait far a. total overhaul, but wa% shocked to discover that a "modem". Coliseum would cost £SOm, with perhaps another £l6m in displacement costs. For little more than this the ENO could build the opera horse of the 21st century. Once again consultants have been railed in, financed with a generous £L4m of Arts Council lottery money, to study all the alternatives. Their report will be delivered fa March but most of the 50 sites they have inves- tigated have already been dis- counted. The early favourite is the netherland of Kings Cross, while the plot on the South Rank, n ext to the Festival Hall, is still a runner. But ngrng its freehold of the Coliseum, now worth perhaps £15m, as self-generated funding towards the new opera house may not win the ENO many fans in the Arts Council, or the government And there is the danger that the delays over the re-development may cost the ENO its place in the lottery queue. A change of govern- ment could also work against costly, high art, projects in heart of London. There is also the problem of attracting matching money from business and individuals. Most of the obvious benefac- tors will have already been approached by the fund raisers working on projects for the Royal Opera House. Sadler’s Wells, the new Tate Gallery on Bankside. and the South Bank. Enthusiasm for creating yet another new temple of the arts may have slackened by the time the ENO is ready to launch its appeal. Currently the ENO is in an odd equilib- rium: maintaining success on the stage balanced against great uncertainty about the future. Antony Thomcroft Theatre /Alastair Macaulay Mixed up families S hared Experience Thea- tre has made a name In recent years for its remarkable stagings of 19th-century novels - signally, Helen Edmundsun's award - winning adaptations of Anna Kcrcnma and The Atilt an the Floss. But. commendably. the company also applies Its style to real plays. Its new production of Eugene Q'NwH's unfamiliar 1924 Amer- ican play. Desire under the Elms at the Tricycle Theatre. London NWS. fa directed by Polly Teale. who (with Nancy Meckler) co-directed the George Eliot: and what I like most is that she has not tried to adapt it, but has simply staged it In O'Neill's play, you can feel the old American need to mod- ernise classic Eurocentric sub- jects and transplant them to American soil. His endeavour, of course, was not only nation- alist but also Freudian: for psy- chology had recently given Oedipus & Co. new identities. Desire has been called O’Neill’s updating of the talc of Phaedra and Hippolytus, but it is surely more original yet for it takes central elements of several dif- ferent myths. Its opening scenes are an lrish-American gender- reversal of the Cinderella story; there are two elder step-brothers, selfish and sniping. Simeon and Peter, and one put-upon younger brother. Ebeo. who grieves for his dead mother. Their old father. Ephraim, brings home a new bride. Abbie; and at once there fa a sexual tension and domestic jealousy between Eben and his new stepmother that reminds us of Phaedra and Hippolytus. But then - unlike H. and P.. but like the classic adulterous couple, Tristan and Isolde - Eben and Abbie break down the barriers between them and make love. The triangle we then watch - son and new “mother 1 * in love and both wishing the old father dead - is obviously Oedipal; indeed. the way that Abbie seduces Eben. by deliberately trying to replace bis dead mother, clinches the incestuous nature of this adultery as plainly as Kun dry in Parsifal. But O'Neill leads the characters on to another killing and to his own conclusion. Tbe simplicity of this family stands in ironic contrast against the myth- ic- psychological resonances of the changing situation. The Shared Experience pro- duction has its core in in tbe performance of Jonathan Cul- len as Eben and Gabrielle Reidy as Abbie. The charac- ters' natural gestures are lyri- cised. so that unspoken thoughts are made vivid by movement. The scene in which she undresses upstairs and he undresses downstairs becomes an episode of high-tension physical ardour. The same intensity is present in their utterance. Reidy’s Abbie is the more spontaneous; almost everything she does is part of a single organic conception. Cul- len. although in motion and speech he is frequently rivet- ing and always intelligent, is the more contrived. The Irish accents are overdone, and. in the opening scenes, not always intelligible. Robin Thomson gives a crusty sketch, none uxj terrifying and noue too poi- gnant, of the old patriarch Ephraim. But Gary LUbum, Ged McKenna, and Shaun Gfanville are lively in support- ing roles. Every twist in the narrative is absorbing. * Meanwhile in Southampton's Nuffield Theatre, tbe action of Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well starts and ends in Rosstilion, near the French Pyrenees. In between the scene shifts to Paris, and thence to Florence and its environs: in brief, to the great wide world. The story that takes, first, young Count Bertram and, next, young Helena who loves him out into the world is an essentially Arthurian story of chivalry. Bertram only learns chivalry the hard way; for all his eligibility, and despite hav- ing an excellent mother, he learns courtesy to women only after grievously insulting Helena. Helena, by contrast is naturally chivalrous; and. when she arrives at court she reminds us of another old myth - the youth who heals the old King of his malady. But the tale readies its resolution at home. Only there does Ber- tram at last learn wisdom: and the succession of Rossillkm is at fast assured. It is scarcely possible for a modem audience not to fad a thrill at the way Shakespeare reverses conventional gender roles here. It fa the woman who heals the old monarch. It is she who is rewarded with the chance to choose her own husband. Count Bertram, whom she has followed to the court. It is he who. appalled to find that he may not marry’ where be chooses and still shy of the opposite sex, runs away from France and from her. It is Helena who pursues him and, cunningly and circuitously, breaks down all his opposition to her. Patrick Sandfoid’s staging of k CHRISTMAS MESSAGE 'fatf i yaur- Aearte Aejf&ul (/u/jfotir- lives e/tficAcel tAe love ^ov j?* a^jpsooeAf iffjpaests. SISTER SUPERIOR r. JOSEPH’S HOSPICE AT STREET, HACKNEY, LONDON ES 4SA AH's Well, keeps the play fresh as narrative, and more or less fresh as thought. And Paul Farnsworth has designed the production simply, so that we can easily feel the mythic dimensions of the story even while be has updated it to the 1950s. The production fa a good introduction to tbe play; I do not imagine, however, that this is a staging that AlTs Welt con- noisseurs need catch. Farn- sworth’s designs look cheap - Helena's wedding ballgown could hardly be duller - and the 1950s look is too often spoilt by modem ingredients. Helena fa a more becoming role for Alexandra Mathie than most other roles I have recently seen this actress attempt; her diction, dignity, and seriousness all register to good effect Nonetheless, it is wearying to keep attending to her habitual air of apologetic but wronged gentility; and all her acting has an attractive quality of repressive con- straint Paul BamhiB is a short and callow Bertram, impressively deep of voice but In crucial scenes, over-active of face; despite use of a cigarette in his immediately post-coital scene, bis playing of this qiisode does not convince. The production presents the difficult role of ParoDes as an affected stuffed- shirt of a sergeant-major; Gran- ville Saxton cannot make this believable. In the beautiful role of the old Countess. Zena Walker fa eloquent and touch- ing. Roy Boutcfaer and Joanna Munro do well as Lord Lafew as the Widow. Several of the smaller roles look in need of more detailed direction, but John Gilmour made a fine impression in two supporting roles. And All’s Well - pro f Iematic. touching, stirring - fa alive. Saleroom/Nicholas Powell France opens its doors T he 400-year-old national monopoly enjoyed by French auctioneers which pre- vents British firms such as Sotheby's and Christie's from holding sales in France fa to disappea r in 1998, the French government has annouoced- The move, which puts an end to years of stalling and lob- bying by France's 400 auction- eers has been welcomed with relief not only by British auctioneers but also by their leading colleagues and gallery owners in France. The latter are anxious to benefit from the stimulus that major sales Sotheby’s and Christie’s would bring to an art market which has slipped behind those of New York and London after being a world leader in the immedi a t e post-war period. The French government deci- sion to scrap the special national status of auctioneer, or “commfasatre-prfaeur". who as a “ministerial officer” must be sworn in by the mintetor of justice before conducting auc- tion sales, was taken in the wake of a warning letter from the European Commissi on in Brussels. Acting on a com- plaint from Sotheby's, the com- mission informed the French government last March that its continuation of the monopoly was an infringement of the Treaty of Rome and could lead to action in the European Court. A report into the state of the art market in France, com- pleted last summer by civil servant and museum administrator. Maurice Aicardi. at the request of for- BaUadur, also concluded the government had to opei the French art market "Sales which could h been held in France have t organised abroad, depriving of revenues which aTnoim hnndreds of mfninrTc of frai noted the report, which shi have been published in J tember. The government’s ure to reveal its contents le fears among art market pre sionals that the report m simply be stifled because a liberal proposals. The auctioneering prob was finally tackled at Wednesday's weekly meel of the French cabinet Over next two years, foreign i tioneers will be able to cone sales In collaboration v French colleagues before b< granted full freedom of nn ment in 1998. The sjwttfr French status “ministerial i cer" will then be reserved sales of property by cc order. In the mean time the gov* meat will go through all legal paperwork. A major pi lem will be compensat French auctioneers w nnlike their British coun parts, do not have a cams ml status and most at start of their careers, tray 1 an existing practice. On its own, however, ■freedom to hold sales is sufficient to attract firms ■ Christie's and Sotheb Thanks to their staff in Frai the latter already exp around £50m worth of Fie artworks to sail abroad ev year. They are reported to h taken an option on a building opposite the presidential Ely- sCe Palace, used before the war for some of France's most spec- tacular sales, far their future auctions. But Sotheby's, like Chris- tie's, fa unhappy about uncoj^ petitrve fiscal arrangements m France, where VAT on imported artworks is 5.5 per cent, compared to Britain's JL5 per cent, and where work by artists living or dead far fass than 50 years entails a 2 per cent tax payable by the seller - the “droit de suite", which does not exist in the UK. “Of course we’re delighted that the French market is, at long last, opening up. But much more needs to be done if we are to hold good, profit- making sales here,” a senior Christie’s official said. Chauffeur Drive Arrivals Hall Dublin Airport Transfers - Tours - Business Trips Uomry Saloons and Mini coaches Ph. 353-1 7044062 Fax:353-1 7044063 _ ART GALLERIES JO«l BOND frs*n 28th ftovembor (a lift ^WnOBT. Century GoSerhs. Th aft* Skis, Hartey-on Thames. Chron lb »1«l) 575«99 -» wee Mon-Fn ID- 5. financial times WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25/NOVEMBER 26 1995 WEEKEND FT XIX CHRISTMAS SHOWS pectacular: that is the word that trips naturally off the tongue of the panto _ king. Paul Elliott. as he contemplates the Christmas panto season which is about to break upon a totally suspect- ing nation. Elliott is. of course, biased His company will be supplying 33 pantos (plus one in Austra- lia! to theatres lliroughout the . country. Bookings to date are chaotic - at peak levels in Bir- mingham. Wimbledon and ; Woking; below expectations in Yorkshire. But last year was very good, with the shows plaj'ing to 80 . per cent capacity and only a whisker off the record Christ- mas of 1993. and Elliott has few qualms about the final out- turn. His chief rivals. Barrie Stead, who services the Apollo chain with eight shows, and Kevin Wood, who looks after the Christmas needs of six theatres in the south east agree that, after a slow start the recent colder weather has . galvanised bookings. The public appetite for panto reveals no sign of flagging. It is one of the UK's gifts to world culture and, despite curled Ups from the artistic eUte, it f ulfills two exemplary roles - it pro- vides theatres with profits that • underwrite more challenging plays for the rest of the year, and it attracts a family audi- ' ence, giving thousands of chil- dren each year their first theat- rical experience. ■ A good panto is unalloyed 9 joy. A gripping plot: humour and romance; music and dance; magic and spectacle; tradi- tional stars and the year's top newcomers - an unchanging experience, geared at everyone. A bad panto is over-long; fields TV personalities with no clue about stage work; has a tired . script: and is politically cor- - rect. In recent years the princi- pal boy has disappeared from . many pantos and the jokes • have been cleaned up. Panto is now aimed at children, with the entertainment of adults largely ignored. Still it is such a wonderfully myriad art-form . that there is usually something to enjoy. Enjoyment should be guar- anteed at the Thenlre Royal. Plymouth. Every year Paul Ell- iott mounts a new production of a classic panto. The sets and costumes, even the script, will then be hired out for the next . decade, or more. Plymouth audiences will be the first to see his Jl father Goose. But apart from the special aerial effects most pleasure comes from the stars. Roy Hudd. who rfhas panto running through his veins, and Jack Tripp, the old- est Dame in the business. Well . into his 70s but still never hap- pier than when throwing up his skirls. These two appeared last year in Bath's in the Hhaf. the only central London panto, at Sad- ler's Wells. It was not a suc- cess, the Wells being off the panto track. Elliott doubts whether the West End will ever host another panto. How- ever the tradition flourishes off-centre. Tilt 1 revitalised MHKSWiwR . ■■■■!■ iin i .v kb • tt ir ifigwff!? ---sse There’ll always be a Dame: Christopher Biggins as Widow Twanfeey in ‘Aladdin’, Bromley Oh yes, it is! Panto time is here again - except in the West End, says Antony Thomcroft Hackney Empire is mounting CmdaxUa. with the usual rota of IV stars, including a local favourite. Nicola Duffet. Debbie in EastEnders, and Ben Onwukwc from London's Bum - ing. Elsewhere around London, Richmond's always popular panto fields a strong team of Lionel Blair, Leslie Ash and Gavin Campbell in Cinderella, while across south London at Wimbledon Danny la Rue pulls up his bloomers for the ump- teenth time to give us his Dame in Aladdin, which also stars that consummate profes- sional. Derek Griffiths. Mean- while at the Beck in Hayes Dick Whittington fields a cou- ple (rf 1 - panto virgins. TV pre- senter Andy Crane as Dick and Mike Burns, Colin from the The Brhtas Empire, as Dame. Every year panto usually reflects the latest cults, but 1993 seems to be cult free - apart from a belated appear- ance by Mr Blobby in the Shef- field Babes. Last year's nov- elty, the stare of Gladiators, are still in panto mode, with jet in the Cambridge Aladdin, Wolf in the Cardiff Dick Whit- tington (alongside Britt Ekland) and Nightshade in Mother Goose in Leicester with Jeremy Beadle, but there are fewer sports star (Kriss Aka- bussi in the Woking Dick with Lesley Joseph and Windsor Davies is an exception). The flood of Australian soap stare has also slackened, but Luke from Home and Away finds himself at the Tameside Hippodrome, and Donna, from the same soap, gets to grips with the Davenport at Stock- port. The newly opened theatre at Grimsby welcomes not only panto with Snow White but also Elisa Szonert of Neigh- bours. suffering the culture shock of her first fishing port and her first panto. She has that ex-Dreamer, Freddie Garr- ity. to hold her hand. Australian soap stars are The Barbican Tine Art & Antiques Fair Blue Hall, Baibican, Golden Lane, London Thursday 30th November to Sunday 3rd December Further information and complimentary tickets from Telephone Creative Events U LcWum PjA -flj LotuJo*. Stitt ftQZ A 0181 MO 8888 Royal Festival Hail ToiG-.TI 360 4205 IJ-'m- . rn ifl ^ grn cone w**_ MNo> Ti» itowJ r sw Ttto London v -nfnr bog> EW A *** 5 ^.SSL C30-C6 MHa w n Hgyesa- f SBC Asspdam OrcftQSPa m breh**tro of A» o rv^r T aaNB* M WI catj M omwenagM*—" 1 SOVitov ttn floH **■■**" , r 1D*c APT GAULESIiS me i ttftnww tape-.?! To Advertise Your Legal Nofic s s COA’cer T**3 T»| c^.+xtO??! 873 POWER Europe under ihe cfciators 1930-46 »>il C.' -'v: 1 or Europe E«+ut-Uon 28 October 1995 - 21 January 1996 Ha>rward (Mery. London Optra roam ■ 6pm da#/, luesday and WteSwsoa/ urol 8pm --•uz 75. it. a » m Mr 3rd 1 tonus, Admission Cb. conce3S*jos OM •tc* jv; yi am-960 : Q 0 S I F K 0 S f i T A L 1 T Y SIliG 0 1 3 1-79 5 2222 PRESEUTED E Y M A ! T H I A S HOFF If. A il il \>-h /S) FT f?c '.Darin Solution 84116 □□SOQaQDlD DEEQB 13 □ BQQ E3 □ ana □ H WINNERS 8316: Anne Cross, Dubai: T. Wheatcraft, Loudon SW3; S. Pickles, London W13; Karen Lonsdale, Woking. Surrey; Robert A M Lettch, Glasgow, GJL Fenian. Getrards Cross, Bucks. WEEKEND FT FINANCIAL TIMES WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25/NOVEMBER 2 6 1995 T ea yean ago Austria was swept by demon- strations against a planned nuclear power plant A Vienna weekly, Wien-Mogazin. surveyed the attitudes of the assorted eco- activists and published what some thought were surprising results. The respondents wanted a clean and pure Aus- tria, foreigners to go away and thought a woman's place was in the home. It was with this memory or Rinder-Kdche-Kirche environ- mentalism that I went, with some trepidation, to Prague last weekend for a meeting on James Morgan Anything goes in the quest for infinity There has to be a different way to use and manage raw materials without resorting to tired, old practices excess resource consumption, almost irrelevant It Is the way view save-thMlug campaigns should not behave as others multinational company and mechanisms^ that Wjg* It was organised by a think- these materials are used that more positively. There is no once did. ensuring all Its actions io™} systems which have Miiorf thn in Honoomnc _ fHe divorce Twrint in wasting anvthinff that Ttwrv nml to be rewarded be tested In a Californian already _ ana wmw* excess resource consumption. It was organised by a think- tank intimidatingly called the World Humanity Action Trust But reassurance come in find- ing general support for the view that democracy and mar- kets had a central role in resolving the problems. Others had more than that to contribute. What may be a cliche for some was an insight for me: I had not grasped that the real global resource prob- lems all concerned renewable items - air, water, trees and fish. The old Club of Rome scaremangering about raw materials running out is now almost irrelevant It is the way these materials are used that is dangerous - the diverse fires lit by oil and coal can destroy earth, air and water. This leads to interesting con- clusions. We have somewhere a vaguely determinist view of our world and its use of resources. Once we have dug the last lump of coal and pumped the last drop of oil, the great show will end. But the reality is different for we have a choice: we can decide whether renewable resources are infinitely available or not. We can create infinity. In this context one comes to view save-the-slug campaigns more positively. There is no point in wasting anything that might be useful. The world is like those drawers we all have at home, full of sealing wax and string which, we think, we may need sometime. So, if we are in the paradoxi- cal situation of having to pre- serve material that is renew- able anyway, what should we be doing to provide incentives to those who waste them? If the Brazilians are to be held responsible for future supplies of rain it is no good threaten- ing them with codes of con- duct that tell them they should not behave as others once did. They need to be rewarded for not cutting down the rain- forest, and how do you do that? You have to find a source of income which can be fed to... Brazil? Brazilians? That would come f rom some kind of global tax, bat on what? Foreign exchange deal- there could be some kind of deal: find those who might have a financial interest in preserving the rainforest and letting them pay Brazil, My own preference was for hand- ing over the rainforest to a miihinatittnai company and wigqrmg ah its actions could be tested In a Californian court That did not get far. Then there are the fish of the mw . No ope owns them so they will be wiped out unless we can Stop fteHarman pursu- ing tb»»Tr suicidal course. You have to get someone to own the oceans to preserve their mntopt *- Here is another odd- ity; a big modem ves- sel can be better than those gaTTarrf little boats. If you have spent yifim (ss.74zn) on a ship it talma some time to get the money The search has to be for proved their worth. And hope the scientists come up with something . But where do we draw the line? A geneticist could produce an environmen- tally improved animal, a closed loop pig, ft* example. One could Imagine a beast with no excretory f u nc t i on s, a lifespan of six weeks and up to 16 legs if necessary. Many will find this distaste- ful but a society that has lived with “efficient" battery hens for decades could probably get used to anything. And “any- thing" Is what we are Invited to consider if we are to curb wasteful resource use. We are faced with problems that lead some to demand a single world authority as at least part of the answer, But not everybody likes top-down solutions, I asked a nice Vien- nese lady at the end of the meeting if her local activists still bad their totalitarian tinge. She said yea. "We are making a study of what we call the ’old avocados' - green outside and brown inside." ■ James Morgan is economics \ correspondent of the BBC 1 World Sendee. Private View H arry Wu was in Europe this week ask- ing people not to buy Christmas lights or toys from China. “It is a time of goodwill when you buy things for children,” said the man who endured 19 years In Chinese labour camps. "So I ask people to remember, it is possible you are buying blood and tears." Wu's appeal for a boycott is the latest step in his campaign to tell the world about China's laogai the “reform through labour” network of prison forms and factories in which millions of criminal convicts, unconvicted political detainees (like Wu) and ex-prisoners of both sorts continue to be held. It is only three months since 58- year-old Wu, by the skin of his teeth, escaped another 15 years in China's prisms. Though an American citizen, and holding a valid Chinese visa, he was arrested as he crossed into China at the Kazakhstan border intent an a third tour of clandestine investiga- tion into human rights abuses. He was interrogated for 60 days, sen- tenced and then deported in what looked like a high-level deal to get the wife of the US president to attend the recent United Nations women's conference in Beijing. Hairy Wu last no time in capital- ising on his freedom. Within weeks he was accusing the World Bank of subsidising slave labour. He alleges that a $9Gm (£58m) credit for cotton and grain development in the Tarim Basin, in Xinjiang province, will support not the indigenous Uighur people but Chinese exiles held in 21 forced labour camps and 3Q quasi- military farms controlled by tbe People’s Liberation Army. The embarrassed bank promised to investigate and report by the end of this mouth. 1 met Wu while he was in London to receive an award from the pres- sure group Anti-Slavery Interna- tional. Why, I asked him, after oil he had suffered - his arm smashed by a spade, his back broken in a mine accident, his nose punctured by force- feeding in solitary confine- ment. his body reduced to a starv- ing skeleton - did he put his neck into the noose again? He paused. "People have to be aware that there is a gulag system." But you have told them already. “No. Not enough. How many camps da you know?" I had just returned from the Tarim Basin myself, and told him I had driven through one of the I t must be a rum old life being a foreign correspondent based hi London. I bumped into one on a bright, cold morning ear- lier this week, outside the Savoy hotel. He was milling In the street with about goo of bis colleagues; all of us were there to receive copies of the new Beatles album. It was a momentous day, a papu- lar culture three-line whip; but my Mend was remarkably blase about the occasion. Yea. of coarse this was big news in Us country, but he was saving himself for a certain Panorama Interview to be transmit- ted on the same night I had to laugh. Only the previous week I had attended an illumina- ting co nf ere n ce organised by Uni- versity College, London, on how the British and Italian press reported each other. The bleak conclusion reached by most speakers was that The crazy courage of Mr Wu Christian Tyler meets the former camp inmate who risks his neck to expose China’s gulag labour camps he had identified in his protest to the World Bank. Wu was dumbfounded. He seized the map and pointed to a nearby spot on the Tarim River where, he said, one of his brothers still lived in internal exile. On bis own release in 1979 Wu confronted some of the student zeal- ots who had denounced him. But his first instinct when he finally got permission to leave nilna for the US was to “turn a new page". Then, as he explained in broken English, be began to have night- mares. “When I sat down, looking at TV, it was like the wind through the window was chilling me. I said, 'Hey, what are you doing?* " He began to tell his story to friends, and as the memories came flooding back so his conscience became more and more uneasy. Per- suaded to start an autobiography, he first wrote a description of the laogai system and set up a research foundation. When his story, Bitter Winds, was published last year some reviewers compared it with Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago. You have said you feel guilty about people in the laogai. Why? "They are not recognised by the world and they are the same as me - human befogs. I was just lucky to survive. I am not the cleverest I am not the smartest No hero can sur- vive in Chinese labour camps. If you resist and say you are innocent you are destroyed - physically.” Wu said be felt “insulted” by con- stant discussion of the Soviet gulag and the Nazi concentration camps and the almost total ignorance of the laogai. His voice rose angrily: “I went to Dachau camp. I went to Auschwitz. They have museums there. What for? It is 50 years ago! Why do they ignore the Chinese?” What is the answer? “We Chinese have to stand straight, walk tall, talk about it. We need to have courage." Do you think people inside China also turn a blind eye? “Yes.” Are they powerless to stop It? "Not only powerless. They have a mental problem." Which is? “Brainwashing.” What about other ex-prisoners like you? "Most of them try and forget. Some even say they did something wrung and apologise for it Most of them are mentally destroyed." There are few exceptions. One is the pro-democracy advocate Wei . ' >~ w r ^ .ms? w. r -V 1 V’-- k- '" ;l V ■ :•**& V ■ Harry Wic ‘People have to be aware that there Is a gulag system 1 Jingsheng, a 44-year-old former sol- communist government, he faces a dier and Peking Zoo electrician who further jail term, or execution. y V ; .. ■:, % a Ifi&r - -fvl this week was “arrested” after being held since April 1 last year. Wei has spent nearly 18 years in jails and labour camps; now accused of trying to overthrow the “Thought reform is very effec- tive," Wu added. “It is not like the concentration camps or Stalin's gulag. Of course there was torture and slave labour there too, but the forced labour was not bo well organ- ised. It was not merged with the country's economy, even for export. libi China’s. “When I saw the gas chambers in Auschwitz I thought Hitler was damn crazy. He had physical gas chambers; the Chinese have mental gas chambers, to destroy your brain." At this moment a door behind him burst open, Wu jumped as if he had been shot, and for a few moments was too upset to speak. He was calmed by his Taiwanese wife Ching-lee. (She accompanied her fyiRhanfl on a trip in 1991, secretly filming camps and prisoners through a hole in her shoulder bag.) How were you different from other prisoners? “There is no gfr npta nnri straight answer. I surrendered because of psychological torture, I became a running dog for the police. I was willing to glye up my political views. 1 wrote self-criticisms, con- fessions, I read Maoist hooks. I wanted to become 'a new socialist person 1 . “1 turned myself into a beast in the end. You cannot think of your- self as a human befog - your dig' njty, your freedom, your future, your business, your wife, love, sex, or children." He recalled the suicide of his friend Lu Hantp e , driven liter- ally rnqd by sexual frustration. "Do not think. Never complain. It only can cause you trouble. It is better to treat yourself as a beast, because a beast does not talk about dignity, freedom or love or morality or standards." Do you fight now because you are ashamed of what you became them? “A mixture, Ashamed, a kind of guilt, a kind of regret And I would not give up." Were you always strong-minded? “Yes" said Wu. He recalled the day in 1961 at Qfoghe Farm, south of Beijing, when he demanded to escort the body of another friend, Chen Ming, to the camp graveyard. Hfllf - dpad himself with famine, he realised that prisoners’ lives were worth no mo re than cigarette ash. A society that treated life as worthless was itself worth- less, he decided, and had to be opposed. “I would not turn myself into cig- arette ash. I wanted to survive. I wanted to tell people about it. I wanted to destroy the system.” Do you want revenge on. those who pat you away? “Not personally." Revenge on the system? "Yes. I want to destroy the machine. 2 do not want to destroy just cogs fo the machine." This year Wu had intended to add to his laogai dossier of 1,100 named c amp s, and to widen his campaign by investigating the treatment of Peter Aspden Beatlemania meets Di-fever there was an unfortunate tendency to resort to the crudest of stereo- types when discussing each other. British Journalists saw Italian life in terms of "pacta, polenta and Pavarotti"; their Italian counter- parts were obsessed with pop musk and the royal family. So I imagined myself in the shoes of one of the latter group, fired with Indignation and determined to go out and write 2JM0-word pieces on Industrial regeneration lit the north of England, only to be brought down to earth at the weekend by a spiky news editor who only had ears for the Fab Four revival and the Princess’s poison. My Mend had rightly seal that Britain on Monday was in the throes of a terrible double Alness: fastidiosum desiderium scarabeo- rum. more popularly known as Bea- tlemania, and Diana-fever, a long-term complaint that has been debilitating the country for some time. This was the picture presented of Britain on Tuesday morning all round the world; a country trying to wallow in past glories but being dragged into the present by forces beyond its control. The delirious frouy is that It was a bunch of pop stars - who, let us remember, were once considered highly subversive - who were fly. fog the flag of tradition and conti- nuity while a member of the royal family was doing her best to blow the place apart. What a fabulous day of paradox: the nightmarish Beatles myth, the Story of how four lovable lads tamed to acid and rancour as the carefree 1960s turned into the dank 1970s, was given the most horribly contrived happy ending; while the fairy-tale princess could only talk of how she threw up foe wadding rafee. If I had been tbe press officer of Great Britain pic, I would have resigned forthwith. Both events spoke volumes for British culture. The Beatles revival reflects so many of Its flaws: backward- looking, hype-riddea, pseudo- canonical. The tedious stogie. "Free As a Bird”, which I shall forever associate with the tilt-beaded Prin- ces* and her drippy eyes, manages to be both maudlin and market- driven. Say what you wAl about today’s pop music, hut Blur, Oasis et ol can ran rings round this. Releasing this ponderous product for Christmas Is like bringing Bobby Charlton back for an impor- tant international because he used to score good goals; a doomed exer- cise to replaying the past. The Princess of Wales, by con- trasfc was looking to the fttiure a future fo which she dispensed love to her people (wasn’t that what John Lennon was frying to do?) «ma asides of eyelined fury to her near- est and merest Armed with the the minority Uighur people in Xin- jiang, underground religious wor- ship and forced abortions. Wu has enjoyed the support of such militant right-wingers as Sena- tor Jesse Helms. 1 asked if that was an emb flrr agCTt,OTa * a “I do not care who they are, left or right, so long as they will talk about the loogaiT he raid. "They may Hifok they are raring me, but I am using them." He is trying to eateb the con- science of western business, eager to set up low-cost ventures In Chida and sometimes unknowingly raring forced prison labour, 1 asked: does it worry you that your campaign will interrupt for- eign investment, and make things worse for the Chinese themselves? "I will be honest with you," Wu replied. “If I was fo business I would want to trade with owm because there is cheap labour, a large market no unions, no strikes, no insurance problems, no civil rights movement “X, too, would be very nice with the go v ernment officials, help their sons and daughters go abroad and pay for their tuition, “Business people do not want me to talk about these tilings. They should know that most of the profit goes to the government not to ordi- nary Chinese, and it will help com- munism survive fo China. “It is very different from the [for- mer] Soviet Union. Why did the Soviet Union never get most^ J favoured-nation trading status, while China has it? This time at the border they had a computer. The secret police who escorted me had Motorola mobile phones. "Western countries boycotted South Africa because of human rights abuses - race discrimination. Is China's human rights record bet- ter than South Africa's?" I suggested China's economic boom would mean that communism - and tiie laogai - would wither away. "No. The laogai will gain In . strength because the government needs it, to increase production and to keep totalitarian control. “Communism as a philosophy is dead. Even the members of the party da not bslievB it at a]L But capitalism does not mean democ- racy. particularly in China." Will you go again to China? “I think, yeah. Only a matter of t ime . I am not guaranteeing when and how. And if I gat there . . . like a fish in the ocean, no one will find me.” vocabulary of therapy and femi- nism, both decidedly modern and un-British phenomena, she spoke with piercing clarity on the- in- ability of a whole s t rat um of Brit- ish society to respond with any- thing approaching a real human emotion. The final patronising, hmaiM t fog Irish that her husband finds* “peace of mind” was one of those moments fo British history which wa k es the whole nation to the changed circ umstanc es all around it. She had talked of pain, despera- tion, broken people ny*d fractured Illusions: the very thing s that pop music used to be about when peo- pie really did look forward to tbe Beatles’ next album. But disfll n- stooment, like soft drags and jeans, is no longer the province of the young and the disempowerecL It flies right to the top, free as a bird. ! ** c °n>p.t Heath la near than aiwjJbfcfc* from £225*£43S. The ultimate IN COMFORT FROM JOHN LOBB READY TO WEAR. J0L John Xdbb J ohn, Lohh - 90, Jermyn Street. London, SWlY 6JD. TeL 0171-930 8089. *1^1 IK* \ • Un Yu FINANCIAL TIMES WBcL-r- EEKwEND NOVEMBER 25/NOVEMBER 26 1995 XXI 1 1 WEEKEND INVESTOR Results due next week Company PINAL. DIVIDENDS Ashbourne CNysafa Concentric Euromoney Pubttcmons F & C PH* In* Tsr Fenehurch Ftarano Wien n Grand Metrapoton Hanson Hendoraon sum n XI Gnwp UffC McCarthy & Stone Moran Huttings Mortand & Co MorfflMew Estates Kattnal Home loans Rawest tosh Smaller Cos m Itayai Bank of Scottanl SaraMreon Sacfronfcs S&oOish kw Tst Scottish Radio Tate* torts TunstaS Group INTERIM DIVIDENDS Andrew Sykes Group ArgyS Group Arthur (Shaw) & Co Aarat HoWtngs Aftas OT Industries Bandt Barto Group Bristol Evening Post 8mtsh Biotech (0 British Im Tsl CPI Aromas Casings Cater ADen HoUngs Dee Valley Water Edinburgh tttcome Tst European Colour Eraupeon Motor Holdngs Evans at Leeds Mean field Group firth Gfl htternatiaul Gttbs Mm HteUng Pentecost hob RotMison UNESCO Blue Chip Tst Wemahonal Tool & Supply Johnson Matthey Joseph lleopakfl Holdings ml Hottngs Man (ED & F) Group Martng Induslnes _ Anncmnt Sector duo Last yur Dividend (pF ■’ Last week’s prefiimhaiy results Year fts-ta* HHh L&H Eng Hod InTf hs InTr sme Dvtn InTr FdPr Prep B&C Frtfr Monday Friday Tuesday Tuesday Monday Ttursday Friday Thursday Thursday Friday Wednesday Thursday Friday Monday bMui F tool htorfro Company • • - Sector .to ' pnfit ffODB) . .• W:*n irt AS Iftsue oa kg 428 &S0) 9.7 (8.4) to ■ 1.10 Abacus : . , • mm;.. 6® 82» , • ns -m-- : 126 428 125 Aroaeai Opp wt Sept ISM (150.1) • - H - - - '• An#) merit , Bfcfle Sec tfljwMsaof 57 &0Z) •' 120 220 120 MS OGv Sep 2*00 (2, SB) 1535 (14.171 2-60 3.15 3-00 52S 5 Mi tm 3JM 14.73 2.75 350 3 JJ 0 # 5*5 Brow Tuesday 338 726 327 Murray Ereoging 4 kilt Oett 83*3 05$ 1*1 H 1 H Prop Tuesday moo 1220 1220 obi ' Pnc ton . . « 032 Q . : .74 H - onto InTr Wednesday Mari - • - On OBrnaof Mb Med Jol 3*981 P*3 D L) - H - H SpSv Tlustay - ... 120 SB tabus' - v"«T Mr v iSS ROto ; : > : r? <.Y4*r-v BUte Thursday 4jDD 3.75 420 TomtoKons fcefi Sec 1.130 (718) 123 (7.7) ft* 0t9 SpSv Monday IjGQ 120 - &ta Jo " ssf M’ti. ■ Ttuisday Tiusday InTr AM fi5T Wednesday 4. SO 850 550 EASE Monday 155 250 158 B&C Refd BdOa Brew BdMa BdMa DM Dvtn Med Ram InTr FdPr Eng BkMr Wtr InTr Chem DM Prop Eton IW Eng Mg Brew Text SpSr IriTr OK Eng BkMr Eng Otfo Text Marston, Thompson & Everard Brew Merchant Rem Group RaFd Menydown SW&C Mstratert Industries Own MKf Kent Hokftigs 0f*+& kw Ta RWWjnfl New London Capital NW DOS Morthamber OH tateratrou! rrutabmon Group RPC Rantnd Group SMwsen (Chnstor# Seebosrd Sewxn Trent Stuck) DugnoMics Soah West Water Stogenucli iWdmrjs 31 Group Tinsley Ruber Tops Estates VnkkxiKi Lunxv Group Vteoptart WadSngtoi (John! Warthomcs • Wessex Trust YOristwe Water boon: roowaw U» approve pwlnTwary twutte ft tst quarterly. ♦ 2nd quarter* * quarturiv. s 3rd ntiivn dividend ■ Directors’ share transactions in their own companies Monday Wednesday Wednesday Monday Friday Monday Thursday Wednesday Tuesday Trnxsday Thursday Monday Wednesday Thursday Friday Monday Twsday Monday Thursday Wednesday Tuesday Monday Thursday Thursday Monday Friday Thursday Tuestby Tuesday Wettaesday Thrasday Thusday Tuesday Monday Werisday Thusday Monday Thursday 156 190 020 3.10 450 120 IjOO 8jOO 105 058 220 087 250 120 400 120 226 420 030 320 025 1.76 020 IDO 139 110 (LAO 190 125 150 238 2128 720 620 1.13 320 122 5 2D 220 520 170 425 920 095 320 057 420 Wr Wednesday uo . 720 InTr Tuesday - - to Monday 0*0 120 Ins Ffttry 050 2.15 BtiRB Tuesday 3*0 3*0 MM Wednesday 050 120 to Ttwsday 075 - . PPW Monday • - PMP Handay 1.10 225 EXEE Monday - - SpSv Monday 320 520 Elec Monday 420 10*0 Wtr Tuesday S24 1620 Mth Wednesday - - ■ Wk UMsday B-10 1820 Tran TJwrsdsy - - hiTr Thursday 220 440 PP&P Monday 033 1.17 Prop Thrasday - - naGn Fntny 220 647 B&C Monday 1J5 2*6 PP&P Vtednesday 320 420 B&C Weflieiday 1*0 320 Prop Tutsflay - - Wtr Wednesday 8*0 1030 Opomv.: FAC EunbUSt FSCSpettf ■ Ferrari* Rangy Bmrnr Greeds MeUotftes#; Mr Ut mb JOB: L&H ft* Sep Sept sect tog Sept Sep •s*. 2544 {227 J) 741IB43J;-. «« P*«) * mzs (rtaj) 351,300 (285*00) i 31 j (248)'’ 1.48 (125) 45*11851' M W 412 (33.6) felt* (85ft. . Dhrideods* per share (pi 425 {4ft? - H 32B (326}' bj 5 n .14 S' 035), 125 (123) • « P2C 226 (225) U-M-. T175 (14 •MM r . Company SALES B.-vbour mdox Card Clew Nondcrmen Ad mm Grp $4 intemarcrwi L oarmonth&Svnc.rwti Murks & Sponccr MftwsU HoWmaS Riiborno Supwscnpo Vonty Gram.’ YorMvdr BOC Mnrrur\ Asset Mnund Tirrriy hri Mqt» PURCHASES Aftfid rtnnfvi BAT hxJP BaikWW D-ind Etptoraioir David BnM-n ‘-Try FRion iRi § E*Ct:«iihrei Co Hamtso \TounhvWrrtd HrsaWi lC-F-! LutiioLr Mere O' Ferrari Pwnbprdcmi' PlUCkfTiUl Ctjrp Vein GiM VBEVSf GraiP Sartor Shores £7000 Mdla 8.594 25 SSor 798.010 415 OthF 2.010 25 Dtet 2saooo 377 SSor 2.300.000 7 RntG 9.154 41 LA HI 750.000 Z3 BM&M 101.817. 149 SSor 25.000 98 Etoc 790.000 99 Text 7.888 26 Chom 125.000 1099 OthF 62.906 538 Mdla 11.513 37 sw&c 7.000 34 Tbco 36.878 197 prop 50.000 22 Und 700.000 14 Enp 5.000 11 Eng 10.000 15 OthF 7.500 27 Prop 130.000 44 Inou 50.000 88 L&M1 18.000 23 Mdia 10.965 50 Now! 18.098 11 LHA •1.750 19 Etoc 3.000 12 RetG 64.500 10 «w Stock Exchange within hve work No of due tw SSTiiMVn a drcctcr ^ ^ inottig of Tiff less cornoins nil WWJ35J < ^ i wfth a **lue over a=si i J=3Ss?sss=r ^ ,M& I^SiSSS* Track. Edinburgh 0131-538 7070 Last wodc^s interim resuHn ' • Pre -tar . • ' 'prqa ipiqo) : J 2240 (2220) 4.M0 (798} . . 1270 fl 270) :e:*sra.i> 811 (7JMO L) 1 IftipftBM)- 2712 (2462) >180 0210 4. 883 0,134 to, m • •: 4200 P,770) 725 0,704; : • Compaiy Adam & Haney Adare mtlng £. Amber Industrial AppBeid UbbvqpUoi AVBBCO HBuXn Vtoruawa Baring arat&xi Berts V.:, • • Stack Amur doqoo . ... Bro c k ham p tan OlMtanxysksns DM PP&P Ctnra OtSv InTr AIM ms* Ofst m Ha* year to. Sep Out Sep Sap. . Sep Sup . • - Sept Aug Sap sap. Sep Sep . ’ tertm Mdenrir . •*..;par stare (B?y Ilf (S2)f 108 0-04) ' 1.7B (l.ra) 1.5 (-> . : '..i2s;{->v- - (-) i ra •nil fCn-' 52 (3) Cetedonta krvestments Otfo Sep 22*00 (22,700) 5* (5.7) CriPt Spar Sep’ ' 838 (M2) ‘ . 1*3 02) . ; Chester Water Wtr Sep 1*00 0230) 2.12 (1*5) Chtoride E&S Sep 3*40 0*40) '..: . ' 0.133 (0.1) . CourtauMs Cham Sep 87*00 (80,700) " 4* (4.15) Cramer. (James) PPSP Sep 803 0280) . 1.1 P-1) DBS Management AIM Sep 1*10 0*90) IS (-) Dstff. Be ttfa Afl • 407 (565) . . . 0* m ; .. De La Rue PP&P Sep 69,100 (72*00) 725 (7) aw Mad Sep. *i m (222M) : 3.7 (2*) .. F&C Genriffli taTr Sep| 1584 0413) - H F%C Private Equity fair Sept 42* (483} FM Eng Sep 39*00 08200) 22 (2) Faupel Trading Text Sep 337 (546) 17 0*S} .. Htato OtSv Sep 2*10 (2,120) 1*5 0*5) Bemtogfjgii tame taTr Ocft 10821 (99*) . 1.15 0.1) ; Fulcrum biTr 0OT 41* (47-1) 1.4 0.4) Oartmore Shared " toTr Dctt 83* (71.1) ' .* 2* (2*J • ; Buardfcw Medta Mad oa 12,700 062DQ * H Hardy OS OK . Sep 254# (634 1} ■H • Heritage VOst oa 27 (48) - H Itawnon BdMa Sep 478 ^20) 0.75 (0.7^ WP IftsniBiurad t HcaG Sep 8250 (7*40) 4 Pfl hespta Brom Nad Aug 384 L (254) .. - . . ' Ktianazoo SpSr Sep 2*10 (3*00) 1.1 0) KewM Systems SpSv Sep 2JB1B (2.17Q 3 (2 Si Locker (Thornas) Eng Sep 748 004) 0* (02) lomndes Lambert ' - ri Sep n*nn B*QQ) . Z9 P.7^ U&G tame O wry oat 74*6 (703) 1*5 0) M&6 Recovery ■ Wr Sept 144* 038*8) 1 (0*) Macdonald Martin same Sep 4*20 (2*30) 2.75 (2*) Manlleto fteway . . Brow Sep 9*80 (B2GQ 1J 0^ Martm Crane Euro toTr oat 132* 017*) • H Mathescn UojxTs toTV Sept 97.1 (82* f) .0* (-) Meyer Mamaftonaf BdMa Sep 30.100 (27*00) 42 142) Unmet 3 Exta Jon 2751 B>towt4*teBbgra)UMrih&gwBiM{MrttattaBmohBBilo«SdraM4eritalMta«toi«nllP.toilwit.i0^i~ Saumtia mtowiKjnra^iicraBBd^3i^K(M^Brai v •( MAtoa iMto i*a a omibmi m Mu m mo. Om^MdOiBlbn^UraaetaBHl^rr tto hta i 1ran M8i B M ilBttinan)[i»iwtaiM>fc4 18»&u4»itoaliM mnm»(fcii4«» « i M toi r|r — a rfiraW caw Oii.» mtow> ha,«ato»n>d— | ttatma tamaaatatnroinBar tort ■ntottoWera my mb Mi ufcotod. Hainan or wtto»fcw>l*awntmO Bratton HUMraBataagtoBytodM. ! ■'3 XXIV FINANCIAL TIMES WEEKEND NOVEMBER 25/NO VEMB HR 26 1995 Weekend Investor Wall Street London Dizzying Dow defies the law of gravity LMUUWt* — Lively act for Clarke to follow The stage is set for the UK Chancellor. Philip Coggan reports on a busy pre-Budget week Even the most bullish did not foresee the Average breaking 5,000, says Lisa Bransten I t there is one thing that makes the crusty sages of Wall Street nervous tt is too much optimism. As investors across the country sat down on Thursday to Thanksgiving dinners made cheery by advancing portfolios, the bears were emerging from nearly a year of hibernation. There is. however, much to be cheery about. A host of forces have combined to make this year among the strongest ever for the stock market in general and the Dow Jones Industrial Average in particu- lar. Although the Dow has moved further faster in per- centage terms, it had never crossed two millennia marks in a year before this year. The Dow started the year at 3.S-I0 and the conventional wis- dom was that it could rise maybe as high as 4,100 in the second half of the year. Even the most optimistic did not put it past 5,000. Eric Miller, chief investment officer at Donald- son Lufkin & Jenrette, began the year worried that long-term interest rates as high as S.25 per cent could choke earnings growth and stop the stock market at about 3.975. “I started 1995 feeling we were in a trading range with an upward bias." he says. “Well, that was some upward bias." Instead the yield on the 30- year Treasury fell to 6.25 per cent, the Dow added more than 30 per cent to 5,052 by midday yesterday and the largest com- panies in the US are expected to add another 30 per cent to the 40 per cent growth regis- tered in 1994. This year's earn- ings growth is especially sur- prising given that it was achieved in an environment of soft economic growth. The "down-sizing of corpo- rate America has produced some lean earnings machines.” says Robert Natale. director of equity research at S&P. Most recently, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing, maker of 60.000 products including Scotch tape, Post-tt notes, computer disks and X-ray film, announced it would cut 5,000 jobs and get out of the data storage and medical imag- ing businesses. Wall Street rewarded that lagging Dow 30 member by boosting the shore price from 559 to $64' «. fuelling the drive post 5,000, However, the technology sec- tor. which rose the farthest and the fastest In the first half, has pulled back sharply. The Dow has added 6 per cent since mid-September, while the Proceeding without the techs Rebased 1/1/95-100 160 90' Jan Source: Da*ast/eam 19SS Nov technology-rich Nasdaq Com- posite slumped amid growing concern about the high-flying silicon chip companies. Micron Technology, which makes semiconductor compo- nents, is now on the down side of a rollercoaster year. From early July to mid-September its shares jumped 72 per cent from $55 to $94^1 only to tumble to $47% by midday yesterday. To John Ballen, chief equity officer at Massachusetts Finan- cial Services, the sell-off in technology companies was a healthy sign that the market could proreed even as inves- tors rotated from one sector to another. He thinks there is room for the Dow to add another 400 points next year. But Laszla Birlnyi. who heads his own eponymous research firm and has been one of the market's most promi- nent bulls through most of the year, is troubled by the care- free bullishness that dominates Wall Street. “There is too much optimism and euphoria," he grumbles. “We haven’t repealed the laws of gravity." If there are a few months of consolidation around 5,000, then the market could con- tinue its upward path without a great disruption. But if sea- sonal cheer pushes it up another 200 points by early January, "we’ll have a correc- tion that will cause us to stand up and take notice”. One feature of this month's markets that has been trou- bling technically oriented mar- ket watchers is the shrinking number of rising shares on any- given day. In the middle of this year advancing issues on the New York Stock Exchange led declining issues by more than two to one. A week ago the winners and losers were almost neck and neck. Another worry is the slowing pace of corporate earnings growth. Analysts foresee 1996 profits growth subsiding to between 5 and 10 per cent, which may disappoint some investors. Abby Cohen, chairman of Goldman Sachs' investment policy committee, was another bull last year (although like most she did not anticipate the size of the gains). She is not as pessimistic as Birinyi, but warns that shares are likely to be choppy for a while as profits growth decerates. And she sees risks coming from Washington where the President and Congress have only suspended the stalemate over next year’s budget It is assumed they will work together now to reduce the def- icit early in the next millen- nium. so any failure to do so could alarm the markets. Finally, the latest develop- E very entertainer needs a good warm-up man to get the audience going before he begins his act After this week, the UK stock market always a dif- ficult crowd to please, is cer- tainly ready for the appearance of The Amazing Kenneth Clarke, with his Budget box of tricks (Ladies and gentlemen, see him produce a tax cut from his sleeve). All-time highs in London and New York, a £3bn-plus bid in the leisure sector, a Monopo- lies referral for two regional electricity company bids and a string of profit warnings - was sufficient to liven up what could have been a very dull pre-Budget week. Inspired by all this activity, turnover passed 900m shares on two successive days, with customer business breaking the £2bn mark each time. Even on Thursday, when Wall Street was closed for the Thanksgiv- ing holiday, more than 750m shares were traded. Anyone trying to keep up with the progress of the FT-SE 100 index would have suffered the kind of neck-ache that tra- ditionally befalls spectators at Wimbledon. Up 19 points on Monday. Footsie fell 24 on Tuesday, rose 28 on Wednes- day, tumbled 30 points on Thursday and finally rebounded another 21 points yesterday. Monday’s and Wednesday’s peaks were all-time highs and the FT-SE-A All-Share index also set a record at the start of the week, indicating that the rally has a reasonably broad base. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, the Dow Jones Industrial Average sailed past the 5,000 level, with scarcely a backward look; it only passed A 000 earlier this year. Wall Street was certainly one of the factors behind London's record-breaking days; but so was that old fevoorite, take- over activity. The latest bid was reminis- cent of the 1980s; a £3bn-plus offer from Granada, best known for its Coronation Street soap opera and motorway ser- vices stations, for Forte, the hotels and Happy Eater con- glomerate. Many 1995 bids have been contained wi thin an industry, for example Glaxo/Wellcome or Lloyds/TSB. While Granada and Forte are both listed under the leisure sector, it would be a stretch to say the bid is inspired by industrial logic. More than two-thirds of Granada’s profits come from television and rentals - areas in which Forte does not oper- ate. In one field where the two companies obviously overlap, motorway service stations, Granada will sell Forte's Wel- come Break chain for monop- oly reasons. The real thrust of Granada's case is that it is a better man- ager than Forte, an I980s-style argument Furthermore, the bid requires the underwriting of a massive fil-Sbn of Granada shares (although there is also a cash element): At' the height of the 1980s boom, paper-based was taxes be cart ‘just Iko thaT on Tuesday? AU-Share breaks Into new territory FT-SE-A All-Share index 1,800 Previous aB-time high 1/00 1 Jan Source FTExMf 1994 Dec 1995 Nov Highlights of the week meat in the Netscape Commu- nications saga carries Its own ftice C hinge. 1895 - . ■' ;i985 * . • warnings. The maker of inter /d *r on week Htnh \‘ Low net software that floated In FT-SE 100 Index 3824.0 +14.8 3632,4 29542 .. Bfd fwer August for $28 tumbled from FT-SE Mid 250 Index 39424 .-21.7 3991.3 . 33002 Disappointment in ‘rocs* S116 l .'< to $105 in two days amid speculation that its rise - AMEC 96 +24 . 99 54%. Dawn raid along with that of other inter- British Aerospace 787 +54 787 ’ 418%. Orange flotation hopes . . net-related groups - was based Cable & Wireless 452 +35 475 350% . . Boardroom reshuffle more on a shortage of shares Forte 346 +84 356 224% Granada bids. than a fundamental belief that -29 476 its future growth will be Granada Group 651 709 Bids for Fdrta enough to justify trading for Inchcape 245 *2 430 226% Dividend concern more than 600 times annual- McAlpine {Alfred) 159 181. 104 AMEC bid speculation ised earnings. Meyer International 382 +24 382 289 Reflof after Interims PoweH Duffryn 467 -110 601 447 Shock interims Dow Jones Imf Average REXAM 341 -31 519 329% Profit warning. Monday 4983.09 - 6.86 Tuesday 5023.55 + 40.46 Southern Electric 920 -51 977 548 National Power bid referred Wednesday 5041 .61 + 1 8.06 Standard Chartered 587 +41 610 246 , Bid speculation Thursday dosed Vodafone 217% -33 285% 177% US selling. Friday bids were common bat since 1987, takeovers have tended to be for cash, not paper. A further example of the trend came yesterday when Amec announced an all-share offer for rival construction - group Alfred McAlpine; this development came after Amec itself was the subject of a dawn raid from Norwegian ship- builder, Kvaeraer. The pros- pect of a three-way bid battle looms; more 1980s nostalgia fodder. What all this means for the market is harder to say. It could be a sign that the market is reaching a peak when cam- paniles start using their own stock to bid for each other; or it could be a signal that we are due far another phase of the takeover spree, which will push shares a hand Of course, the utilities sector has been providing takeover stories a-plenty this year. One more bid was chalked up this week, with Northumbrian Water agreeing an £823m offer from Lyonnaise des Eaux. But tiie surprise of the week was the decision by Ian Lang, the trade and industry secre- tary, to refer the bids from National Power for Southern Electric and PowerGen for Mid- lands Electricity to the Monop- olies and Mergers Commission. Since aH previous bids in the sector had been cleared by the government, the news caught the market on the hop with shares in all four of the compa- nies involved falling sharply, which contributed to Footsie’s fell on Thursday. Tuesday’s decline owed much to the latest in a series of profits warnings from lead- ing UK companies. Shares in De La Rue, the bank note and security printer, feu more than 20 per cent after the group’s second warning in eiggf months. .... .J* On Monday, paper group Rexam had followed other groups in the sector, such as Arjo Wiggins Appleton and the Dutch KNP, un warning that de-stocking by customers was bt trin g profits, N . Slowing growth in ' the UK and European economies appears to be affecting many companies - this week, Bab- cock was the latest group to reveal difficulties in its Ger- man operations. O fficial figures showed that the UK economy grew by only 0.4 per cent in the third quarter and the Con- federation of British Industry lowered Its 1996 GDP growth forecast from 2J) per cent to £5 per cent So how can UK shares be at all-tizne highs if economic and earnings growth is slowing? One reason is that the market is hoping for a base rate cut maybe not on the same day as the Budget but after the next meeting between the chancel- lor and Eddie George, the & emor of the Bank of England. The second reason is that slower growth, and a relax- ation of inflation fears, is help- ing gilts; the yield on the benchmark 10 year issue fell to 7.63 per cent, its lowest level of the year, yesterday. Falling returns on rival assets - bonds and cash - encourage inves- tors to move into equities. So the stage is set the mar- ket is ready, the traders are waiting by their screens. The time is nigh for the headline act of the year. Barry Riley Explaining the Wall Street dash The two reasons for a bull market are always profits and money J ust in time for Thanksgiving Day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average soared through 5,000, and Wall Street has certainly had the List laugh on disbelieving global Investors in 1995. The US stock market, up 31 percent, is easily rhe best- performing tin local currency I of all tin? 26 national markets tracked by the FT ’S&P world index senes so far this year. Maybe we should have taken a little more seriously those pundits who declared at the end of 1994 that history dictated Wall Street would inevitably do well in a year ending In “a". At any rate, foreigners have shunned US equities, being net investors to the extent of only S2bn in the first half of the year, whereas they poured well over SlOUbn into the US bond markets. This is now a big, big bull market Where you start a calculation from is a moot point Perhaps we should be back in 1982, with the Dow at 600, because on the long-term charts 1997 now looks like only a blip. But since late 1990. in particular, the Dow has climbed by 10S per cent without any serious correction at all This year the market paused in January and then took off like a rocket until July, led by technology. But the technology sector indices effectively peaked in September and the recent final surge through 5000 has relied on a leadership rotation in favour of big blue chips such as Procter £ Gamble and Eastman Kodak. This leaves US equities trading on scary valuations, with a dividend yield on the S&P 500 Index, for instance, of only 2.03 per cent, compared with a 15-year average of over 3.5 per cent. The trailing price 'earnings ratio is 13.4. not quite so out of line with past experience, but this is after a heady profits boom which ought argue for caution about future growth prospects. How did Wall Street get here? There are always two explanations for a bull market, which boil down to profits and money. The profits growth has to be there; but in any serious market bubble the vigorous flow of money is always much more important. First, the performance of US companies. There has been strong cyclical upturn in earnings per cent, at about 20 per cent both last year and this. Macho corporate executives have been cutting costs, while a cowed workforce has found its pay under pressure. But this scarcely justifies such 3 significant bull market. With due apologies to the late C. Nbrtbcote Parkinson, I would like to put forward Riley's law of btdl markets: rationalisations expand to match the market rises that need to be justified. So forget mere earnings growth, there are now altogether more ambitious explanations revolving around Global Leadership (it looks more impressive with capital letters l. When you look at the long-term charts, 1987 now seems like only a blip Here is the story which is intended to justify stock market valuations well above historical experience. American technology and business culture are now taking over the whole world. Japan and Europe are in trouble, and getting deeper in it, leaving American multinationals firmly in the driving seat The world's trade in goods and capital is more open than at any time since before the first world war. So Wall Street is now in a position to discount not just a cyclical expansion of the US economy but a massive secular surge of growth right around the Pacific Basin, and indeed, beyond. This time it's different - honestly. Now the money explanation. Earlier in the year liquidity began to be released by the slowdown in the US growth rate, which had peaked at 4.4 per cent year -on-year in the third quarter of 1994. The long bond yield, which started the year at 7.9 per cent, began to fall quite strongly. Foreign inflows played a big part here. The Bank of Japan and other Far Eastern central banks became important buyers of dollar fixed income securities. Nearly all the issuance of US Treasuries has in effect been absorbed by foreigners this year. Domestic savings are notoriously low in the US, but they have been freed to flow into the stock market Certain long-tom factors have strengthened these flows into equities. Confidence is unusually high, since there has been no substantial market setback since the 1987 crash. The expansion of tax-sheltered long-tom savings plans has encouraged and stabilised the flows into mutual funds. At the same time, demographic trends - notably, the maturing of the "baby boom" generation - have boosted investment flows. The final factor which has inflated the bubble further since the summer relates to a policy change in faraway Tokyo. The Bank of Japan last July cut its yen short-term interest rate to just 0.5 per cent and began desperately pumping out liquidity into the Japanese economy in order to rescue the banking system, devalue the yen and halt the economic slide. Cheap yen credit backed by an implicit exchange rate guarantee has become an important source of support for the US bond markets. In feet much of the resulting liquidity appears to have been trapped in the US markets, forcing dollar bond yields well below European levels: the long Treasury bond yield has now tumbled to 6V« per cent exactly where it was towards the end of the 1993 bond boll market Against this background Wall Street has been propelled upwards, but other stock markets around the world have seen little benefit so for. Wall Street is now highly vulnerable to a reduction in the flow of liquidity from Asia. Although this does not seen to be imminent, it is likely that the rotational plays within the US equity market will quite soon become exhausted and liquidity will begin to spill over into other national markets. Further out, the true reckoning will arrive. Global domination win not. after aU, come to the rescue. Offshore managed funds and UK managed funds are listed in Section One Is it worth following Directors when they buy shares in their own companies? YES! Just see what has happened to shares In British Aerospace and look at when directors bought . . . Two directors bought shares here Five directors bought shares here 1V*1 I'M’ 1995 1*0 |W4 Y.U ™ » know reta, dire™,, are buyin E „ *Hiug tavily.Yuu «, know quicldv too, ™, mo »«k. » read dre -wrepopre) but you ate, t„ow mo. about th, com ’ record ic get a more comprehensive profile on which ro 9m- .r_L _ ^ ‘ C ° mpreh T t ^ ^ meagre copy in your newspaper). '***? *” “Sf’*" -TT k J tKtfcTndc thrauuuua/fct olju* £« and ,ou win n™. a more >uu1! also be able to get iurcfc/y update, anTtie Inade Track hotline- ” . rfi : “ ***• 1 MSK TRACK m ACHtEES - Dn^aDobt 1 1 CndkCW A. oeetT H I ICCTUG WdOta* Dtraa Dttats from my «nuit| MUM tMTIMETa . 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