The market crash has eliminated any lingering doubts that Ferranti Plc’s acquisition of International Signal & Control would go ahead, and Ferranti says that it has acceptances with respect to 74.3% of the equity – and is extending the offer to November 13 to mop up the rest: the fear that the dollar is teetering on the edge of the preci-pice and is about to go into free fall – we see the pound going to between $1.80 and $1.90 and would-n’t be surprised to see $2.10 to $2.20 – has hit particularly hard all UK companies with a large share of their business denominated in dollars, and the combined Ferranti-International Signal has 30% expos-ure to the dollar; Ferranti shares yesterday morning were down 39% from their level before Black Monday, International Signal off 33% – that’s respectively 18% and 16.5% worse than the market as a whole.
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