Not too much should be read into STC Plc’s mumblings that it doesn’t see how it can get involved in the proposed Metsun Ltd consortium that would like to bid for GEC Plc because it couldn’t raise the money to buy GEC Plessey Telecommunications outright, but the whole consortium now looks very fraught indeed: it shouldn’t be too difficult however for Lazard Brothers to get some kind of adequately convincing bid together because all Plessey needs is for the Metsun and the GEC Siemens Ltd bids to be referred to the Monopolies & Mergers Commission to buy itself six months’ breathing space, and as any bid for GEC will undoubtedly be referred, no-one in the consortium need fear actually having to honour its commitments because the bid automatically lapses as soon as it is referred – it may all sound exceedingly cynical, but that’s the way of the thing.
