Scrim-shanked
THE markets' fall this week, snuffed out such hopes as remained for the old City broking house of Scrimgeour. Taken over by Citicorp of New York in what should have been a world-class union of connec- tions and resources and professionalism, Scrim' has now been shut down at an ultimate cost which runs into hundreds of Millions. It is true that Citicorp in the City has changed and lost heads as though it Were married to Henry VIII. Even so, this is a shattering defeat in the long war of attrition being fought out in the London stock market. At the time of Big Bang it Was a commonplace that this war would be with by the big international battalions, With their limitless ammunition and their greater experience of the new kind of Warfare. They turned out to have first World war generals. In such a war, though, We are all losers. Those who argue that companies should be allowed to show brand-names as capital assets in their accounts might like to put a figure on some ltY names: Scrimgeour, Vickers da Costa, S1
Men & Coates, Laurie Milbank, L.
essel, Capel Cure Myers, Pinchin De- any, Pember & Boyle. . . These good and expensively-bought names have all vanished, and the firms for the most part have vanished too, leaving no legacy ex- cept (as Margaret Reid points out) the swimming-pools which their former part- ners have been able to dot across the south of England. And now, what on earth is to become of Billingsgate, the noble market- hall done up by Richard Rogers for Citi- corp to house its market-makers? They were never moved in, for the building itself was less than ideal — a riverside position without tge views or the light, and, long lingering in the upper galleries, the evoca- tive aroma of souvenir de haddock. I think it should house the market in fish.
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