At worst European players will be off the field
At worst, European players will be off the field."If they can't respond, they risk becoming subcontractors to one of the US giants - Boeing, which in August bought McDonnell Douglas; Lockheed Martin, which is buying Northrop Grumman; or Raytheon, which capped the US consolidation with its $9.5bn purchase of Hughes from General Motors.So worried have politicians become that early in December Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany issued an unusual joint statement ordering their defence industries to adopt, by 31 March, a "clear plan" to create pan-European linkups.Still, analysts are sceptical that even this high-profile ultimatum will help cut through the bickering over leadership and ownership of any cross- border combinations. Car makers are expected to trim prices and pack their models with more options to attract the continent's expected 13.3 million buyers.Volkswagen upped the ante last October by reducing the price of its new Golf by 1.4 per cent and packing it with about pounds 1,000 of extra equipment as standard."King customer is going to have a marvellous time and the bean counters at the car manufacturers are going to hate it," said Peter Schmidt, an analyst at Automotive Industry Data.The dominance of the German manufacturers is likely to hurt Ford Europe, which is bringing out its new models towards the middle and end of the year. The euro will then exist as an accounting unit but paper money won't be distributed until 2002.. Even after selling most of the 1,800 pubs Nomura bought from GrandMet (some to Pizza Express entrepreneur Hugh Osmond), Hands is still landlord of 4,300 more it bought from Inntrepreneur and Spring Inns in September. It is hard to see Nomura sweeping up the betting slips and collecting rents in Aldershot and Catterick for too long.Hands is a heavy metal music fan, a man who, like Richard Branson, began wheeling and dealing in his student days. After school at Judds, one of the excellent grammar schools that survive in Kent, Hands went to Mansfield College, Oxford where in his spare time he ran Art Sake, a shop specialising in silk screen printing. Nomura sold Angel three weeks ago for a pounds 330m profit to Royal Bank of Scotland Hands bought the business for a fraction of that last year.
Even by City standards, that represented a lottery win.Only three weeks before, Hands had sold off an American leasing business, AT&T Capital Corporation, that Nomura had bought 13 months earlier. The profit? Over pounds 400m.Young Hands is clearly a man to watch There are plenty of assets left to flog off. Nomura was one of the companies which famously picked up assets on the cheap by taking advantage of the last government's rush to privatise British Rail. Until just before Christmas Nomura owned Angel Train Contracts, one of three "Roscos" - rolling stock operating companies - that lease out the train sets previously owned by British Rail.
"Betting revenues tend to have a remarkably constant relationship to gross domestic product."As with La Horlick, there is even a whiff of controversy about Hands and his activities. Nomura also owns high-street bookies William Hill.Surely this is a risky business for anyone, let alone a bank? "Not really," says Hands. Between the Army house and the pub, the squaddie can even stop off and bet on the 3.30 at Wetherby courtesy of Hands. The two had talks late last year and in 1993.GEC, which makes military electronics, had been keen to merge its Marconi defence business with its bigger rival, Thomson-CSF.
But after the French government blocked that avenue, opting instead to build a single national defence company, British firms may have to do the same."You could see BAe and GEC getting together," said Zafar Khan, an analyst with SGST Securities "It's very much up in the air with all these groupings.". A Huge pay cheque. An Oxford graduate who combines a working-till- all-hours City career with lots of children Only 38 years old. No, it's not Nicola "Superwoman" Horlick but Guy Hands, a young banker at Nomura International and father of four.