AITC faces split threat .sx by Jeff Prestridge .sx THE Association of Investment Trust Companies , the trade body representing the pounds20 billion investment trust industry , is losing its battle to stop a number of top companies defecting .sx The walk-out , which was led by the pounds572 million British Investment Trust and could extend to another 14 trusts , has been inspired by AITC's decision to ask members for more fees to support a marketing campaign .sx The seeds of the campaign were sown last year by AITC chairman Philip Chappell when he called on the 200 members to cough up pounds5 million to launch an assault on the private investor market .sx The plan is to drive discounts down by doubling the number of private investors .sx While Chappell's plans were watered down to pounds1 .sx 7 million , the effect is members' fees , payable this month , have doubled .sx Five companies , British Investment , RIT Capital Partners , Grahams Rintoul , Glasgow Income and Yeoman , have said they will not pay so they will have to resign .sx Other trusts yet to make up their minds include Gartmore America and the pounds320 million Scottish National trust .sx The reasons for the revolt are numerous .sx Some trusts feel the campaign will not benefit them directly because they are already standing at a premium to net asset value .sx others with wind-up dates soon are miffed they are having to pay the same fees as other trusts .sx Last week , AITC's executive committee discussed the crisis to see if a compromise could be worked out .sx It is believed chairman Michael Hart und Chappell agreed to visit the waverers .sx AITC's Lesley Renvoize said :sx " It is sad to lose any member but hopefully they will be back .sx British Investment has left before and we'd welcome it back .sx " .sx Hellenic adds fizz to investment in Greece .sx by Ray Mgadzah .sx CAPITALISM with a Greek flavour is on the march and British investors are being offered the chance to quench their thirst for foreign shares by backing Greece's top soft drinks bottler Hellenic Bottling Company .sx Hellenic , headed by Gerard Reidy , is expected shortly to become the first Greek company to set aside a sizeable part of its equity for foreigners in a pioneering offer expected to raise nearly pounds70 million through a listing on the Athens stock market .sx That would put a value of pounds300 million on Hellenic , which holds the Coca-Cola franchise for Greece , Ireland und Nigeria and also supplies fruit juices .sx Hellenic has two- thirds of the Greek soft drinks market and half of its fruit juice sales .sx Its offer will mark the first move by Greece to entice foreign capital by allowing investors to take part in new issues .sx Other companies , including the soon-to-be privatised telephone service are also expected to target foreigners .sx Thanks to legal changes , Hellenic is setting aside 6.5 per cent of its equity for the overseas offer .sx The British are expected to pick up the lion's share of the foreign tranche .sx Hellenic , which is owned by Leventis-Ioannou Group , is offering 25 per cent of its shares in the float .sx It is being advised by merchant bank Schroders with Hellenic Industrial Development Bank as lead bank .sx City institutions tend to show a greater thirst for foreign stock than Europeans but Greek shares have usually been offered in numbers too small to attract interest .sx Leventis-Ioannou's activities include Middle East construction .sx It is controlled by two of Greece's leading families .sx Lloyd's capacity hit as members quit .sx by Robert Tyerman .sx THE Lloyd's of London insurance market now admits its capacity to write insurance is falling fast as syndicate losses and the prospect of its first overall deficit since 1967 cause a rising tide of members to quit .sx " Capacity is already well down from last year's pounds11 .sx 25 billion , " Lime Street spokesman Nick Doak told the Sunday Telegraph .sx Some observers estimate it could have fallen to under pounds8 billion by next year .sx Until recently , although membership had fallen from its 1980s peak of 33,000 to 26,700 , capacity was being maintained , as individual members committed more of their wealth to the market .sx With the pound strong against the dollar Lloyds's all-important ability to take on American risks was also enhanced .sx This trend was not unwelcome to Lloyd's chairman David Coleridge and the council , which felt a return to fewer , more substantial und less panicky members would be appropriate for today's tough conditions .sx But capacity is now falling while the dollar is rising again und increasing concern is being expressed about the amounts owed by insurance syndicates to the Lloyd's American Trust Fund , which collects and distributes dollar-denominated premiums and claims .sx A leading underwriter is believed to have pulled out of the hull market because he feels premiums are too low , while more bad loss news is expected from the Gooder-Walker syndicates 290 and 298 , which wrote excess-of-loss among other business , some brought by broker Bill Brown's Walsham group .sx This comes on top of the pounds320 million losses faced by members of the Feltrim syndicates and the hundreds of millions potentially payable on pollution claims .sx It is thought the Lloyd's authorities would like to see the number of syndicates and members' agencies reduced to produce a more streamlined , better equipped market .sx Some sources have suggested a bottom limit of 300 members per agent .sx Other market practitioners would like to see members required to write a minimum cover of pounds500,000 and deposit pounds10,000 cash apiece to create a substantial reserve .sx Cray fishes with pounds111m for bait .sx HOURS after he launched Cray Electronics' pounds111 million hostile bid for software consultancy SD-Scicon on Friday , chairman Sir Peter Michael was in confident mood .sx From a basement room in the old City morgue , home of an adviser , Michael outlined the plan that he hoped would sound the death knell for the independence of a 1980s glamour stock that has turned into a 1990s fallen angel .sx He summed up his message with the words :sx " SD-Scicon is a company that has no management , no strategy and no profits .sx " The share bid with a cash alternative was final in the absence of a counter offer and shareholders would do best to take it - or so he said .sx SD-Scicon chief executive Philip Swinstead , who has a stake in the company worth pounds5 .sx 6 million , is expected to put up a fierce defence .sx Analysts reckon the offer may flush out rival bids .sx In the past bids from Sema , Cap Gemini Sogeti and Thorn EMI have been mooted .sx Either way the scene is set for a bruising contest .sx In one corner stands Michael , former chairman of UEI , the electronics and engineering group sold for pounds500 million to Carlton Communications in 1989 .sx He is advised by Morgan Grenfell .sx Michael led a new team into Cray another fallen 1980s glamour stock , 18 months ago .sx Now he has SD-Scicon's biggest shareholder , British Aerospace , with 25 per cent , on his side .sx In the other corner stands Swinstead , SD-Scicon's founder .sx He retook the helm a few months ago , revamping the board , appointing a non-executive chairman .sx Samuel Montagu is advising .sx The prize is a company that has fallen on hard times .sx This year analysts' forecasts range from pounds5 million to pounds11 million , revealing the extent of uncertainty surrounding the group's future after a run of poor results .sx Its woes are blamed on the pounds70 million takeover by Systems Designers of Scicon in 1988 , one of a number of purchases made by Swinstead , and loss-making contracts , some of which are subject to litigation .sx In 1984 , two years after it made its stock market debut , Systems Designers stood on a historic p/e of 78 .sx The shares peaked at 118p in 1986 but now Cray is offering just 42p .sx Swinstead has chosen to keep a low profile so the task of fronting the defence has fallen on chairman John Jackson , who also heads Cambridge Electronics Industries .sx Jackson explains the cornerstone of his defence .sx Cray wants SD-Scicon on the cheap when it is coming through a difficult time , he says .sx Shareholders are set to reap the reward if they remain loyal .sx SD-Scicon supporters say recent software bidders have paid a price above the sales of their target .sx Examples include the takeover of Hoskyns by Cap Gemini Sogeti and the purchase of Quotient by ACT .sx CGS paid pounds286 million for sales of pounds189 million while ACT paid pounds27 million for about pounds22 million of sales .sx SD-Scicon has sales of pounds256 million but Cray is offering less than half of this .sx But Michael counters that SD-Scicon is overshadowed by loss-making contracts , against which it wrote off pounds20 million last year .sx They cast doubt on the quality of what remains .sx Some analysts share this view .sx " Scicon is a can of worms .sx It is going to take the best management in the world to sort it out , " says Tressan MaCarthy of Panmure Gordon .sx SD-Scicon says hostile bids are anathema to people businesses .sx But investors might have other ideas and may , like BAe , choose to take what is left of their money and run .sx Ray Mgadzah .sx Grampian bids for pounds56m tonic .sx " WHAT we are proposing is effectively a management buy-in .sx " Grampian Holdings chairman Bill Bughes wants to persuade investors his pounds56 .sx 5 million hostile bid for pharmaceutical group Macarthy , owner of Savory&Moore and John Bell&Croydon , is more than an opportunistic calling of the low point in Macarthy's fortunes .sx Macarthy , whose last dividend was paid out of reserves , sees it differently .sx " My first reaction was one of amazement , " says chief executive Ian Parsons .sx Some investors were more prescient .sx The Stock Exchange is investigating the spurt in Macarthy's share price from 160p on Tuesday morning to 192p on Wednesday before the bid announcement .sx Few believe Grampian's present mix of convertible and equity worth 206.4p a share will be the last word - Macarthy now stands at 230p .sx But a return to near 1989's peak of 355p is not to be expected , even if another bidder enters the fray .sx Parsons , in the driving seat since August 1989 after the departure of Nicholas Ward , insists his team can make it grow without help from Glasgow-based Grampian , whose operations range from veterinary products to sports shoes .sx The Macarthy camp suggests Grampian is just a ragbag .sx Hughes claims a strategy of going for market leadership in " niche products " .sx This makes a logical target of Macarthy , with such gems as Farillon , distributor to hospitals and wholesalers of insulin and rubella vaccine .sx Recent comparisons favour Grampian , whose profits rose 220 per cent between 1986 and 1990 to pounds13 .sx 1 million .sx Macarthy's increased by only 7 per cent to a depressed pounds4 .sx 6 million .sx Over that time , it has underperformed the FT All-Share Index by nearly 50 per cent , while Grampian shares have outperformed Macarthy's by almost 400 per cent .sx In 1986 institutions led by John Govett put in Ward as chairman .sx An Ernest Saunders prot e g e at Guinness , where he headed retailing , Ward set about beefing up Macarthy .sx But he took it into pharmaceuticals wholesaling just when one of the two market leaders , Unichem , was gobbling up market share by offering stakes to retailers in return for exclusivity and making life tough for competitors .sx Macarthy bought the Drummond pharmacists from Guinness for pounds42 .sx 6 million in 1987 , funded by a rights issue at pounds4 .sx Much earlier , Hughes had spent 10 years building up Drummond .sx In 1988 Macarthy bid pounds65 million for Unichem itself .sx It failed and Macarthy's market share slumped from 11 per cent to 5 per cent until the courts ruled Unichem's share stake distribution scheme illegal in mid-1989 - it has since returned to more than 10 per cent .sx Last August Macarthy sold its wholesale business to the Dutch Medicopharma group for pounds15 .sx 75 million , at a pounds6 million loss .sx Parsons points to recent turnrounds in veterinary products and elsewhere .sx Analysts expect a modest profits upturn to between pounds5 million and pounds5 .sx 5 million in the year to September 1991 .sx Macarthy's five-year contract to source 90 per cent of certain drugs from Medicopharma might make AAH and Unichem , with their own franchises , think twice before bidding but Lloyds Chemists might be interested .sx The Grampian package offers an historic p/e ratio of 17.8 and a yield increase of 4 per cent .sx