Here we go again! The great battle for House of Fraser is being relived between the Al-Fayed Brothers and Tiny Rowland, with the Department of Trade Inspectors called in to referee, even though the match is over.
Quite what Tiny Rowland of Lonrho hopes to achieve with his demands for an inquiry into the takeover is hard to see. If it is that the bid be re-opened, and that he be given a chance to take control then he is certainly going to be unlucky.
But that said, he does have a point. The first Monopolies Commission Report into Lonrho’s proposed acquisition of House of Fraser concluded that such a merger could act against the public interest, and so was banned.
The second report, four years later came to a different conclusion and allowed the takeover to go ahead. The problem was that the Al-Fayeds had already launched their own bid for Houser of Fraser, and that went through without a Monopolies Commission investigation.
It always was difficult to see what logic there was in referring Lonrho but not the Al-Fayeds, which carried off the property-rich House of Fraser chain from under the noses of Lonrho and any other UK buyers which might have been interested.
Lonrho has always questioned where the money came from to buy House of Fraser, suggesting that it may have come from the Sultan of Brunei, who was moved at one stage to authorise a denial.
Now it appears that substantial sums have been borrowed by House of Fraser. If that is the case, developers should stand by for the pickings. House of Fraser has some splendid sites, and the quickest way of reducing debt would be to sell some of them off.
