The one group of people having to moderate their cheering at the momentous – and so far peaceful – revolution taking place in East Germany is the defence contracting fraternity, particuarly those with defence businesses for sale: on all current indications, events in Eastern Europe will soom make it almost impossible for the Warsaw Pact to launch the kind of offensive that Nato is structured to meet, and on a four- or five-year view, defence is going to be a very unappealing sector to be in as defence priorities change radically, and Thorn EMI Plc has been hit by the fact that there are many more sellers than buyers of defence businesses; it is having to review its options after finding that no-one was prepared to meet its UKP300m asking price for its defence arm.
