Don’t look for Plessey Co Plc to roll over and play dead when and if the new bid comes from GEC Siemens Plc: the company says that it is reviewing several credible alternatives to surrender to a bid, and will also likely bring announcement of year-end figures forward from the May 25 date – anything to get the share price up and face the predators with having to pay an unacceptably high price; Plessey most needs to find a way of unlocking the value tied up in its 50% of GEC Plessey Telecommunications, which alone would be accorded a valuation close to that of the whole Plessey group it the stake that GEC plans to hand to Siemens at a knockdown price were to be auctioned and Siemens had to bid against AT&T Co, Alcatel NV, L M Ericsson, Northern Telecom Ltd and NEC Corp, all of which are desperate to get their telecommunications businesses up to a critical mass to ensure that they will survive to develop the next generation ISDN phone exchanges.
