Times 22 for NFC
Page 6
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SHARES worth til when the National Freight Consortium was privatised in 1982 arc now worth £22, shareholders learned last Sunday after they voted overwhelmingly for a wider share ownership plan.
A record attendance of around 2,000 shareholders gasped with delight when told the value of their 10p shares has risen to £1.10. Their value has more than doubled from 53p at last year's annual general meeting.
Shareholders had already endorsed the NFC board's seven-point plan (CM, February 1) for wider share ownership, including a "safety net" of City buyers to buy shares which employees are otherwise unable to sell.
They have also backed NFC chairman Sir Peter Thompson's strategy to postpone a Stock Exchange flotation for as long as possible and to give existing employee/pensioner shareholders powers to resist unwanted takeover birds.
He told them that an undertaking to the Government not to float runs out next year, but a general election in 1987 or 1988 will upset the stock market. He is also unwilling to sacrifice the benefits of employee ownership.
Shareholders will be given an annual recommendation for or against flotation from next year's AGM.
But shareholders' .calls for profit sharing to be spread more equally were resisted by Sir Peter. "The day that this business becomes a co-opera tive . is the day we start
on the slippery slope downwards from excellence towards mediocrity."
Shareholders also approved a plan to increase NFC's contributions to charity to 0.3 per cent of 1984/5 profits in the current year — £86,000 — and to increase this gradually each year.
But a minority of shareholders, represented by NFC's personnel director Bryan Wilson, felt it was trying to achieve too much too soon, especially when staff facilities at some company premises fall short of ideal.
Wilson, who insisted he was not "voting for wife beating", added: "If you don't see me here next year, I hope you'll ask the question why."
• The price paid by NFC for SPD, the former Unilever distribution specialist, has risen from £6 million to £8.9 million. Sir Peter Thompson told CM that is because additional assets were acquired with the business.