ABSTRACT
Fairey Holdings is a group of engineering companies. When the Belgian government refused to rescue the subsidiary, Fairey asked its bankers to put the whole conglomerate into receivership and a receiver was appointed. Unlike Trafalgar, it had done a fine job of researching Fairey’s prospects. It obtained good advice from a merchant bank; and concluded, quite accurately as things turned out, that most of the group’s non-aircraft holdings would continue to be or soon become profitable. Ferranti is another important British electronics and engineering group. The Department of Industry transferred its Ferranti holdings to the National Enterprise Board (NEB) in February 1976. It is a matter of dispute whether Ferranti could have received private sector financing when it was nationalised. Relations between the NEB and Ferranti while the former was a shareholder were not at all bad, though they had their moments of unpleasantness.
