SKINFLINT'S CITY DIARY

Sir Isaac Wolfson is a unique phenomenon —it is difficult for those educated to other disciplines to appreciate the sheer market guile and feel for a situation that a man like Sir Isaac has built up for himself in develop- ing his great enterprise. His successor, as time goes by, will be his intelligent public-spirited son Leonard Wolf- son who had no hesitation taking Enoch Powell to task on a liberal question at a House of Commons dinner a year or two ago. Sir Isaac was not slow to appreciate the importance of two-tiering his business through trade and hire purchase in order to obtain something like double the gross mar- gin on a given amount of catalogue or floor space on about the same volume of sales.

Pas de deux

Little known (to the general public) is the fact that when an article is sold under a hire purchase agreement financed by the seller, it is unnesessary to take the profit on the article into the profit and loss account for corporation tax purposes until the last pay- ment has been received from the buyer. As Sir Isaac's company, Great Universal Stores. are selling goods on hire purchase agree- ments of up to three years' span, they have been able to build up a snowball reserve of money eventually due to the Revenue. This is as much as a continuing £50 million. Sir Isaac like all good retailers, and most sensible businessmen, regards buying as the supreme function. Some years ago I was told, 1 think by Mr John James, the Bristol radio and television chain millionaire, that he and Wolfson used. at different times, to meet Sir Jules Thorn of Thorn Electrical to place their bulk orders for Tv sets on behalf of their rental chains for the following year. The procedure was like a pas de deux. First drinks, and then a long dinner during which amid blandishments, flattery and the occa- sional mention of the rival Plessey Company, a price was agreed. 'Right, that's a deal—let's shake on it', would say Wolfson. 'Let's now sit down for coffee and a good long talk— about credit.'

Switch sell

Bear in mind when you are trying to buy a secondhand Encyclopaedia Britannica (as I was recently) that a lot of the small adver- tisements in the classified columns, including regrettably sometimes the SPECTATOR, are placed by the selling organisations of the encyclopaedia companies or their salesmen. They attempt to perform a switch sale by either saying that the set offered is sold, or by offering what is described as a nearly new set as unacceptably little below the new price. The advertiser will possibly say that he has just bought the latest set perhaps saying he mentioned your name to the encyclopaedia salesman who will then feel free to call with this 'introduction'.

Closed shops

I do not share the unequivocable admiration for everything Sir Arnold Weinstock has had to undertake in his conglomeration (admit- tedly with some sort of theme) of GEC, AEI and English Electric. His takeovers have inevitably been fol- lowed by a pitiless series of sales and auc- tions of factories, machinery and equipment as well as the so-much-more-agonising redundancies.

Tolstoy said, work makes not only ants, but men too, cruel.

To an outsider his liquidations and sales are based on the premise that cash on deposit at the present ridiculously high internal inter- est rates will give shareholders more than any attempt at new enterprise in an inflation- ary situation. Factory closures and partial closures and sales of equipment have taken place from Erith to Woolwich and in many other parts of London. And at Witton, at Rugby. at Trafford Park and Liverpool they go on anal will no doubt continue to go on. The root cause was no doubt over invest- ment in electrical supply and telecommuni- cations over the last few years and, very probably, the cruel surgery performed by Sir Arnold was inevitable though the giant merger will be seen before long to have been a mistake. But there is little point in confus- ing his stomach for carrying out this work with the genius of creating new enterprises on an organic basis.

The mills of Mao

As a footnote, the Red Chinese have had a mission in this country during the last few weeks looking for the very largest second- hand machinery available (the supply of new machines has been reduced through the closures in Staveley Industries and other works by lack of demand). The Chinese have already bought very large planing machines, horizontal boring and turning mills and are still shopping here and on the Continent for machinery which is virtually impossible to replace. Probably the largest machine that they have bought came as a result of Sir Arnold's cut-back at the Liverpool works of English Electric. The Chinese paid £165,000 for a secondhand Richards (Staveley Indus- tries) 50-foot diameter vertical boring and turning mill through a German-controlled firm of middle men who were fortunate enough to buy this 500 ton machine from Sir Arnold's people for about £65.000. As Sir Arnold would no doubt say, 'We're not greedy'.

Snake-oil

Homily of Robert Townsend, former Presi- dent of Avis Rent-a-Car and author of Up the Organisation (Michael Joseph 30s) writ- ing elsewhere on takeovers: 'The best acqui- sition will look overpriced . , . the bag of snakes will come disguised as an ever-loving blue-eyed bargain'. Congratulations to Gallahers on keeping away from snake-charmers and meeting Jim Slater and buying Dollond & Aitchison the spectacle makers for £10.2 million cash, pro- ducing a pre-tax profit of £1.03 million on net assets of £3.78 million.

By Royal Appointment

David Hicks, the smart decorator, has gone into publishing by forming Britwell Books Ltd., Britwell Salome (his own house), Oxon. This will be a disappointment to his last publisher, Leslie Frewin, who published Hicks's previous books on decorating. Brit- well Books Ltd's first publication is David Hicks on Bathrooms priced five guineas and distributed by Michael Joseph. This book has given him, presumably, less trouble than past books, since he has not restricted it to his own work or in fact to new work. He has even been able to publish. as it were, by default, an illustration of a bathroom on page 32 which I have reason to know one of his customers was too impoverished to re-do. David Hicks has apparently helped this par- ticular customer to face this ignominy by putting himself forward as the John Betjeman of Odeon modern: Hicks says that he per- suaded his customers to retain the features which were so evocative of the 1930s. David Hicks, not unlike that other young courtier, Lord Snowdon. is. in spite of having reached middle age, a self-energising business swinger, as well as being married to a Mount- batten and cousin of the Queen. He has been able to outlive that warning which most of us would happily disregard: 'There is no foreign debt that brings more disaster to a man than to look for a wife who encumbers him with a great dowry if his own affairs are prosperous'.

Fleas, Flukes, Cuckoos

lord Rothschild, the head of the House of Rothschild, has been made Scientific Adviser to the Cabinet by the Prime Minister. This change was not welcomed by Mr William Rodgers the Labour Mr for Stockton-on- Tees who I see in Hansard for 3 Novem- ber said he would like to send Lord Roths- child away 'with a flea in his ear'. Lord Rothschild's sister Mrs Miriam Lane may well find this (or the flea) of interest— she is the author of that fascinating general work (I have read it) on bird parasitology

Fleas. Flukes and Cuckoos.

Also, I recall several years ago now, a most fascinating talk on television, I think on Children's Hour. although I cannot be sure of this. Lord Rothschild was discussing, in the most urbane and also scholarly fashion, how a particular tick's sperm was seem to move. under the microscope of course. Lord Rothschild then expressed his own sense or marvel at the movement. 1 am unsure whether, now that he is Scientific Adviser, he will find the movements of minor politicians as interesting as that of ticks' sperm.

SUCCESSFUL CON61 Al ER 4-re—like Jessel Securities: Spem pretio non emo—I do not buy hope for ready cash. Terence, A delphi, II.ii.11. UNSUCCESSFUL CONGLOM ER ATE-iikC Ling Temco Vought:

Plenus rumarum sum, hac toque iliac

effluo—I am full of cracks and leak on every

side. Terence. Eunuchus, 1.ii.25.