The withdrawal of British Aerospace Plc from the list of companies actively interested in the future of Ferranti International Signal Plc on Friday leaves no strong UK supporter for the company – smaller companies like Dowty Group Plc have expressed interest only in parts of Ferranti: Matra SA has also put itself out of the running, and it seems unlikely that a foreign company will be allowed to buy Ferranti outright, so the two leading contenders for shareholdings are now Thomson-CSF SA and Daimler-Benz AG – but the institutions that have agreed to underwrite Ferranti’s conditional rights issue next February (CI No 1,319) may now find they must honour their commitments.
