Who owns Dunlop?
The Punch-and-Judy knockabout in progress at Dunlop does not seem the best way to determine the future of the company. Chairman Sir Michael Edwardes and BTR's chairman Sir Owen Greene take swings at each other, with the Take- over Panel in the role of policeman, trying to keep order and likely to be socked for its pains. Shareholders do not begin to have the information on which to choose be- tween them, and it is not even clear that the decision should be theirs. Dunlop has not published its results for its last trauma- tic year, and there is thus no telling how much of the shareholders' equity has been lost, or indeed whether any remains. It will be instructive to see how Dunlop's auditors report on the accounts, and whether these are said to have been prepared on a `going-concern basis'. A going concern, in • that definition, is one which can only keep itself going by leave of its bankers. They look like the effective owners of Dunlop, but they have not wished to seem so, striving to appear neutral between the two claimants, though occasionally vexed when one side or another takes them for granted. They must wonder whether it would have been better for everybody if they had put Dunlop into receivership. It was a classic case — a scattered collection of businesses whose principal common factor was the crippling burden of debt at head office. Take away the burden and watch the businesses bounce back. There might even, as there was at the old Rolls-Royce com- pany, be something for the shareholders. Above all, it would have been quick. Receivers have a clear remit, and do not hang about in fulfilling it. At Dunlop, it will be many months after the old board's departure before the staff and the custom- ers can be sure where they are supposed to be going, and under whose leadership. Working for a company in the face of a bid is always unsettling. Dunlop's managers must be near the end of their wits and their patience. How long can the good ones be expected to stay? I wish the banks would bang Punch and Judy's heads together.
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