The mutuals are able to do this for the simple reason that they don’t pay a dividend and are winning market

The mutuals are able to do this for the simple reason that they don’t pay a dividend, and are winning market share from the converts with growing success.No, the real reason is our old friend executive pay. Despite these supposed advantages, the converts are being persistently outclassed by the remaining mutuals
with more competitive savings and mortgage rates. Unable to spend it to advantage, they are being forced to give it away by the bucket load. Nor did it have anything to do with the more efficient, accountable and profit-orientated culture shareholder status is meant to bring about. It never had anything to do with access to capital, the argument peddled by building society chiefs at the time. As it turns out, the building societies already have more capital than they know profitably what to do with.

THE REAL reason for the building society conversions of the last year has emerged shamefacedly from the closet even faster than this column could have predicted. But short term the overhang may further depress the price, leaving the average shareholder/supporter feeling as ripped off as if he had bought one of the Magpies’ replica shirts All very unsatisfactory.. Likewise Shepherd Offshore, which controls a further 8 per cent of the shares.While the two men seemed intent on staying put the shares rose by 10p The talk now is of CHD selling down to below 50 per cent Long term that may help the shares. The patriach, Sir John, comes out of retirement as caretaker chairman of the football club. Meanwhile Douglas may have quit with his tail between his legs but his holding company, Cameron Hall Developments, continues to hold 57 per cent of the shares and the right to nominate a director to the board. Those remarks ultimately cost Mr Ratner his job and his company.Ultimately, the same may happen to the Hall dynasty But in the meantime it remains in control.

But the truth is there was a deafening silence from the independent non-execs for more than a week after the allegations first appeared in the News of the World.Shareholder pressure only resulted in the departure of the two men in so far as most of the minority shareholders are also supporters. The better parallel is with the fate that befell Gerald Ratner after his ill-judged comments about the quality of his goods at the Institute of Directors. Profits on turnover of pounds 101m last year dropped to pounds 9m from pounds 9.9m for 1996, mainly due to the effect of the strong pound.. NEWCASTLE United are not having much luck on the pitch this season. But last night the supporters of good corporate governance were savouring a resounding victory at St James’ Park after the departure of Douglas Hall, the aptly titled vice-chairmanof the football club, and its chairman Freddie Shepherd

That was how it was being presented, anyway The trouble is that in reality it wasn’t really this at all. The scoring partnership of Shepherd and Hall has been broken up not because of their poor stewardship of the quoted company, of which they are also both directors, but because of unguarded and offensive remarks made and recorded in a Spanish brothel.
It will probably suit the record books to show that the two men quit after running up against the defensive back line of Sir Terence Harrison, Dennis Cassidy and John Mayo. Edmund Bruegger, the managing director, will make pounds 68,250 from his shares.Gerber has irrevocable undertakings from 54.5 per cent of the total issued share capital of Spandex, which was floated on the Unlisted Securities Market in 1986.Mr Bruegger said he and Mr Dobson expected to continue in their roles “for the foreseeable future” but said Mrs Dobson might stand down.Spandex’s operations have suffered from maturing European markets.

This means Mr Dobson, Spandex chairman, and his director wife obtain 325p for each of the 17.8 million shares they collectively own. Their big break was to win exclusive UK distribution rights to an American letter cutting computer distributed in the US by
Gerber Scientific Inc.Now Gerber has made a pounds 109.2m deal to buy out Spandex. Charles Dobson and his wife, Mary, established Spandex in 1976 to market a range of signs systems they had designed together. A husband and wife team that founded a sign-making equipment company 22 years ago are poised to share pounds 57.9m between them after an agreed bid from a US buyer.

It was “something we will be re-examining” in the light of the company’s increasingly buoyant position, he added.. But P&O says that there are also great opportunities to cut costs.Meanwhile Lord Sterling revealed that a new joint venture between P&O’s bulk shipping interests with Shougang Group of China could be floated as a separate company.It would be natural to move the joint venture, to be called ABC, away from the umbrella of P&O by way of an Initial Public Offering on Hong Kong and US stock markets, he said.Lord Sterling also used a presentation for P&O’s 1997 financial results to indicate that shareholders could be in line for an increased dividend over the coming 12 months.The 30.5p dividend held for the last five years in the face of mounting City criticism had probably been set too high in 1992, he said. But P&O says it needed further increases to make up for a 50 per cent drop in short sea rates between 1994 and 1997 when the Channel Tunnel opened.A fire which halted Tunnel traffic was partly responsible for P&O Ferries producing a significant increase in 1997 operating profits of pounds 67.7m for the 12 month period. That helped produce a better-than-expected P&O group increase of 30 per cent in pre-tax profits, to pounds 433.9m.But one third of ferry revenues came from shipboard sales and P&O is presuming the European Union will abolish duty free sales next year.P&O and Stena have a free hand to raise their fares over the next three years under the terms of EU approval for the joint operation.