Encounter with Ryder
Property owner Harry Hyams has arranged to buy for 0.05m the Methodists' Kingsway Hall site with a frontage on Kingsway. I am sorry to hear that to get good access he is now having to negotiate to buy Carlton House, owned by a subsidiary of Inter- national Publishing Corporation, for up to £2m from Mr Don Ryder of International Publishing Corporation. Mr Ryder is a mem- ber of the brute school of salesmanship. Think of a price, add a bit and don't shift until it is clear that there are no other buyers around—that is his policy.
Last year the SPECTATOR talked to Mr Ryder who at that time wanted to sell -Encounter magazine which had lost money during every one of its fifteen years' existence. It was still
losing readers and was due to leave its offices in December on the expiry of the lease.
I am told the SPECTATOR offered to takeover Encounter (and continue publishing it) by paying the 1PC what amounted to asset value —even though it was losing money at the rate of 000 per week. Two meetings took place with Mr Ryder who suggested a pre- mium amounting to double asset value based on some formula that, he said, 'we used when we sold the Sun'. In spite of the classic business boob in the case of the Sun debacle this could not be made to make sense.
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