\IFC: 'join us' plea as 53.5m sale is signed
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VERY ONE of the National eight Company's 26,000 nployees plus 18,000 ex-emnee pensioners has this week en formally invited to become shareholder in the new itional Freight Consortium. Last Friday, Transport Minister )vid Howell signed the ntract to confirm the sale of 3 NFC (whose fixed assets are lued at £96m) to the Consorm for £53.5m while a banking ndicate agreed to loan £51m. This means that the Consorm will work on a particularly -tall equity base since a nimum of only E5m share pital is required. Banks have bscribed £875,000 of this and ) remaining £4.125m must be sed by the 44,000 employees
d pensioners, giving them an .5 per cent controlling interest.
prospectus and share appliLion form have been sent to all tployees and pensioners invit them to buy shares in the nsortium at £1 per share. are is a minimum holding of e hundred shares per person d announcing the move this lek deputy chairman and chief ecutive of the National Freight mpany Peter Thompson was nfident that the response will sufficient to raise the rieces-y E4.125m.
ro set an example, Peter ompson himself is buying at st 40,000 shares, while 12 ter senior executives are ap plying for another 300,000 between them.
Virtually all NFC managers were enthusiastic about the idea when the plan was suggested last surnmer and Peter Thompson expected that at least 60 per cent of employees would take up the option.
Of the four unions involved in the NFC, three, the National Union of Railwaymen, Transport Salaried Staff Association and the United Road Transport Union, are said to support the plan. However, the largest, the Transport and General Workers' Union, has come out against it.
The NFC does not expect this to be too much of a problem and Peter Thompson commented: "If we are successful the company will be ours by the end of February."
Group managing director of British Road Services David White also spoke of a higher level of commitment and an improvement in industrial relations as a result of the employees becoming shareholders in the Consortium.
To help employees understand the proposition before them the prospectus has been kept as "jargon-less" as possible. It will be followed up by 300 meetings, complete with video films, around the country to explain the offer.
Employees are also being offered a £200 interest-free loan to buy the shares, which officially go on sale on Monday. The earliest time at which the subscription period closes is February 16, but for those employees wishing to buy or sell shares in future there will be four "dealing days" each year.
The prospectus states that the Consortium does not intend to open its shares to the public for at least five years. In the meantime, Peter Thompson appeals to NFC employees ".... to join us as shareholders in the Consortium and so help create the first UK company of our size controlled and substantially owned by the people who work in it."