Snug and Smug
WHILE all this pantomime is being carried on in the name of investor protection, there are 100,000 investors waiting to hear from a protector. They have their money in Framlington, the unit trust group, which (as I was saying last week) has been faced with a takeover bid, unwelcome to the majority of the directors and managers who have managed that money. The unit- holders have not been consulted about the bid, and indeed noone involved in it has told them about it. The Framlington direc- tors have felt themselves inhibited from doing so by the rules which govern takeov- ers. What about the trustees of the trusts, who are there for the unit-holders' benefit, and, I do not doubt, charge a fat enough fee for their services, a fee which the unit-holders must ultimately pay? Lloyds Bank Trustee Department is lying low and saying nothing, with no plans to intervene. What about Lautro? Not a chirrup. Doubt- less it was too busy trying to preserve life assurance salesmen's commissions. The single voice raised on the unit-holders' behalf has been that of a former chairman of Framlington, Philip Darwin, who has asked for a Department of Trade Inquiry — which would hold the line and allow the unitholders' interests to be considered. It is brave of Mr Darwin to climb over the parapet and lead the charge. The comman- ders and the staff officers of investor protection remain far from the firing-line, snug and smug in their bunkers. Let us wish them, too, the joy of A-Day.
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