This is because either they already invest more than half their funds in stock markets outside the European Union or the fund manager wants to have this option open.In the case of these funds, only pounds 1,500 can be invested in them via a PEP. But a management group with a good spread of funds will be able to offer both qualifying and non-qualifying trusts.Investors with windfall shares from building societies and insurance companies converting to public company status can use them either to start a PEP with an investment trust or add them to a plan.Windfall shares are treated as having zero value if put into a PEP within 42 days, leaving the full pounds 6,000 allowance intact. Investors said the death of the 88-year-old could signal an opening up of the company’s tightly held shares. Ricard’s own holding in the company amounted to 12.5 per cent but his relatives and members of the Pernod family, with whom Ricard merged in 1975, own 40 per cent of the equity and control 50 per cent of the votes at Pernod Ricard.
Shares in the company rose as much as 5.4 per cent at one stage before settling 8 francs higher at FF270.5, one of only two stocks to buck the falling trend in France’s benchmark CAC 40 index.
A further five orders are said to be in the pipeline.This will be the first launch aid that Britain has given to Airbus since 1988 when the Government contributed pounds 400m towards the development of the original A330-A340 family. In the next five years launch aid repayments are expected to total pounds 500m.The Airbus programme supports about 15,000 direct jobs in Britain and a further 25,000 indirectly, which is the main justification for the taxpayers support it has enjoyed over the years.The other Airbus partners are Aerospatiale of France and Daimler Benz of Germany, each with 37.9 per cent, and Casa of Spain with 4.2 per cent.The agreement to support the new stretched A340 may prove an important litmus test of how the four partner governments will react to launch aid requests for the development of the much more ambitious super-jumbo, the 600-plus seat A3XX.. Shares in Pernod Ricard rose sharply in Paris yesterday following the death of Paul Ricard one of the founders of the aniseed aperitif group. The trigger for Airbus deciding to go ahead with the industrial launch of the programme was a $1.5bn order for 12 A340-500s announced yesterday by the Taiwanese carrier Eva Air. This takes launch orders for the new jet to 27, enough to justify proceeding. The Government is close to agreeing a pounds 200m launch aid package for British Aerospace and Rolls-Royce for a new long-range Airbus aircraft. The four-nation Airbus Industrie consortium, in which BAe has a 20 per cent stake, is expected to announce the industrial launch the A340-500/600 series at the Dubai airshow in a week’s time.
This indicates that government launch aid for the Airbus partners in virtually in place.BAe is seeking about pounds 160m in launch aid towards the pounds 500m cost of developing a new wing for the stretched A340 while Rolls has applied for aid to develop a smaller version of its Trent engine to power the jet.Development costs of the A340-500/600 programme are expected to reach pounds 2bn in total.
But Britain would like to see a large slice of the revenues come to taxpayers. Britain also wants the agreement to include provisions allowing UK rail freight operators more access to the French rail network.M Jospin said yesterday that the two governments could not risk an agreement that would “endanger” the position of shareholders.. The French Socialist government under Mr Jospin has decided instead to opt for a French solution involving Alcatel Alsthom joining forces.But there is now a growing recognition in London and Paris that there must be some form of cross-border consolidation if Europe is to compete with the likes of Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin and Boeing-McDonnell Douglas.The political leaders also discussed the extension the British and French governments intend to give Eurotunnel to operate the Channel tunnel but it appears they are still some way apart on the deal.The two countries have agreed to extend the concession by 34 years until 2086 in return for a share of the profits, and a commitment to handle more freight trains through the tunnel.France wants to limit the two governments’ profit share to 25 per cent because the vast bulk of Eurotunnel’s shareholders are French. Whitehall sources said afterwards that there was common agreement that restructuring had to take place. “There have been massive changes in the US defence industry that have created enormous groups. Unless we restructure we will be swamped.”Historically, collaboration with the French has faltered over the issue of who leads. France, for instance, pulled out of the Eurofighter project to develop its own jet, the Rafale.But both BAe and GEC have been also been frustrated in their attempts to forge an alliance with Thomson CSF, the giant state owned French defence electronics business.
The statement gave renewed hope to BAe and GEC that they may at last make some headway in their efforts to create pan-European groupings to challenge the might of the giant American military and aerospace suppliers.
The issue was one of the key topics of discussion at the summit. This is generally enough in itself to discourage the practice.But perhaps as important, Britain’s regulatory framework for telecommunications is set up with the deliberate purpose of establishing viable competitors to BT. Competitors such as Energis are allowed access to the BT network under the “interconnect” regime on what by any standards are very favourable prices indeed. In Germany these interconnect rates have recently been set three times higher than they are here and still Deutsche Telekom is appealing against them.And in any case, if BT had tried to establish an Energis type operation, it would almost certainly have been seen by the regulator as an attempt to stifle competition and might have been jumped on as a result The circle, then, can just about be squared. It is indeed possible for a four-year- old upstart to be worth a twentieth of the century-old incumbent, if only because all industries, like life itself, are a constant process of birth and rebirth.Oh dear. The high speed, Channel Tunnel rail link seems to be in trouble again, or at least Railtrack has been trying to make it so. The money and route for this vital piece of rail infrastructure linking the Channel Tunnel and London has been left wanting for almost as long as I’ve been in financial journalism.
By promising pounds 1.5bn of state subsidies, British Rail’s stake in Eurostar, St Pancras Railway station, vast tracts of disused railway land, the kitchen sink and various other odds and sods, the last government finally persuaded the private sector to agree to finance and run it. Now, according to rumours put around by Railtrack, the whole thing is in trouble again. The City won’t finance it, and the route is in dispute once more. At this stage it is unclear whether there is any substance behind these rumours, or if this is just Railtrack trying to muscle in on the action Let’s hope it is the latter.. Speaking after the summit meeting in London’s Canary Wharf with the French president Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said the three leaders had agreed that restructuring had to take place in the British and French defence industries.
