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Downstream lies Greenock, now an empty rusting memory of a great industrial past. Across the estuary is the entrance to the Gare Loch, where Faslane, born of the Cold Wa […]

FINANCE Tight-fistedness, short-sightedness and a lack of sympathy -- there has been a stream of complaints about the caution and parsimony of the banks. Fears are voiced about the damage […]

The industry which offers protection against life's disasters is itself running for cover as a cull starts throughout Europe. Europe's huge, fragmented, often spectacularly profitable but now widely troubled insurance […]

Britain's grocery bill this year will be somewhere in the region of 57£ billion. Almost two-fifths of this now passes through the tills and checkouts of just three companies, Sainsbury, […]

British industry is in a distinctly favourable position vis-a-vis its two principal by Germany's Kiel University. In this year's list of the top European companies emerge are not good, with […]

It used to be a parochial industry, but now British water thinks globally -- and is taking risks. Its initiative is not just driven by business nous but by a […]

If you are overtired, overworked, having problems at home but blissfully happy in your work then you are probably a British manager. Though few managers in 1993 can regard either […]

In August, we described how the uncertain economic climate had hardened the approach to buy-outs by both buyers and lenders. Here, Peter Wilsher presents four casebooks of aspirant tycoons who […]

Management buy-outs, says Ron Hobbs of Phildrew Ventures, which has been involved in 388-million £ worth of them, are |a particularly pure form of capitalism'. Even throughout an extended recession […]

To politicians, planners and the public at large, the transport and distribution business still carries the image of a poor relation, or at best an unfortunately necessary adjunct, to the […]

The sign next to the main gate of the world's biggest sweet factory changed last autumn from 'Rowntree Mackintosh' to 'Nestle - Nestle Rowntree Division'. It took more than four […]

Some West Germans may sneer at the East but the Ossis have a hunger for success and a yearning for challenge - two stimuli that promise to revitalise the whole […]

The computer industry is in crisis. Everywhere the news is of plunging profits, sagging sales, massive lay-offs and a headlong rush to form defensive alliances. The mighty pioneers, including IBM, […]

There was a nasty moment earlier this spring when Andrew Buxton faced his press conference as the new chairman-elect of Barclays. Was it true, he was suddenly asked, that the […]

IBM, whose initials in many countries are still almost interchangeable with the word 'computer', is suddenly under worldwide attack. After decades in which it was regularly the world's most profitable […]

Real men, they say, don't eat quiche; but real quiche-makers are voracious and enthusiastic consumers of expansion capital. Cavenham & Simms, the fast-growing Carlisle-based food manufacturers who are Marks & […]

It was in 1966 that Lord Denning, at the height of his legal reputation, pronounced in a famous judgment that although banks were always easy to recognise, they were often […]

Britain still sells more than pound 100 billion-worth of goods and services abroad every year. That represents nearly one third of national income -and almost twice as much per head […]

Though 1992 is well on, the dream of an open Europe is distant. Nineteen Ninety-Two is upon us - indeed a full quarter of it is already water under the […]

In recent years, the man born Jacques Lucien Delors in a poorish working-class district of Paris on 20 July 1925 has become, for a large and vociferous group of Britons, […]

Lord Cockfield, in recently unbuttoned mood, delivered a scathing verdict on the general attitude of British politicians (and indeed, let us face it, the British at large) towards the so-called […]

Forecasting the next 25 years in die life of a nation, a region, or one of the world's major power blocs should in principle be a relatively straightforward affair. The […]

Eurosclerosis was a word of the '70s and early '80s, coined to describe a condition where the Community (as it then called itself) seemed to have run out of energy […]

Arm-twisting and acrimony accompany the share-out of Euro-rewards. Peter Wilsher In the US it is called 'pork barreling'. Whatever other high political aims they may be engaged in promoting, senators […]

The Midi-Pyrenees area is an example for those looking for footloose capital. |South Dorset is Open for Business' announces yet another document destined for my bulging file on European development, […]

EUROPE Peter Wilsher sees a few cracks of light in a predominantly black single market picture One year in and one can detect distinct signs of single market disenchantment around […]

New competition is making the UK look less attractive to foreign firms, says Peter Wilsher Britain's biggest machine tool-maker these days - in case you were not aware of the […]

EUROPE A German constituional ruling could put Europe's unification into reverse. Once upon a time, when the 12 signatories to the Treaty of Rome made up something called the European […]

If you buy a washing machine or a toaster anywhere in the European Community these days, you can be reasonably sure that your purchase will meet more or less the […]

Jose Ignacio Lopez de Arriortua, whose cost-cutting wizardry at General Motors and subsequent scandal-drenched departure to Volkswagen (see also Management p16) made him by a wide margin the most newsworthy […]

EC countries prepare to do battle over welfare bills and labour costs. Peter Wilsher Contrary to popular belief, Britian is far from being the only single market country that worries […]

Germany's garbage disposal goes green and lands in a mess. Europe is in deep trouble. Its leading economies are stalled, its currencies in a tangle, its 'open trading' aspirations under […]

A typical work patterns are, typically, different throughout EC countries. Peter Wilsher Whatever happened to the standard working day and the still deeply entrenched notion that a living is something […]

The European Community has had a sorry start to what should have been the soar-ahead 1990s -- what with being mired in Maastricht, at odds over the perennially stalled Uruguay […]

During France's spring election campaign, the veteran Socialist leader and former prime minister, Michel Rocard, was passionately expounding his plan to cure the country's soaring unemployment. The dole queues, at […]

While the Maastricht ratification row grinds on in Britain's increasingly tetchy and parochial Parliament, it is easy for stay-at-homes to believe that the European Community has somehow gone into a […]

A costly translation error led an entrepreneur to an EC enterprise plan. Peter Wilsher It cost 2 [Pounds] million to teach Giles Trentham the value of European language skills. During […]

The reality of a frontier-free Europe lags far behind single market rhetoric. Three months into the single market and the frustrations are mounting, with complaints accumulating in Ben Nevis sized […]

Managerial skills for a United Europe of States are taking time to develop. Europe flounders, but the search for the European-minded manager goes on. Just as economists have been forced […]

The protectionist giants are feeling the effects of new EC restrictions. Peter Wilshier Despite the blinkered beliefs of Britain's Eurosceptics, Brussels is not always concerned only with the obscure nooks […]

After the debacles of 1992, EC architects need to cast a cold eye on policies. The collapse of the exchange rate mechanism (ERM), even if only temporary, has left a […]

While Maastricht, which was supposed to chart Europe's future, remains bogged in confusion and second thoughts, the creation of the single market goes majestically ahead. The target date for its [...]

Politicans are beginning to worry about the long-term jobless, writes Peter Wilsher Not long ago I was talking to a schoolboy in Middlesbrough about jobs. He told me that not […]

Now we have time to decide what Europe is for and where it is going. With luck there will come a time when Europe looks back with deep gratitude to […]

The European consumer remains desirable but elusive European consumers, I have decided, get a rather raw deal. Considering it is the existence of these 337 million dedicated shoppers, holiday-makers, car-owners, […]

Michael Wood reckons he has discovered the recipe for becoming a European manager (as opposed to the single-country, I-leave-that-sort-of-thing-to-the-export-department variety). In his case it requires that you graduate with a […]

Governments can solemnly confer, bureaucrats can attempt to impose common standards, bankers can unify currencies and trading practices until they are blue in the face, but |Europe' will still remain […]

Two months on, and British business is still trying to work out the real score that John Major achieved in Maastricht. Was it game, set and match, as the prime [...]

Iveagh House, on St. Stephen's Green in the heart of Dublin, was handed over to the nation by the Guinness family in the 1930s, and is now the elegantly marbled […]

Pilkington's switch from St. Helens to Brussels could mark a patter. Pilkington's decision to move a large part of its headquarters operation from St. Helens to Brussels may well turn […]