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It was no easy task to find a successor to Lord McFadzean, who was recognized not only as a figurehead for his own company but of industry generally. But British Insulated Calender's Cables are confident that they have found the right man in William Fraser. An electrical engineer by training, Fraser played a key role in the development of Scottish Cables—later to become part of BICC—and his work in building up the present company's overseas operations has earned him a Queen's award for export services. Ken Gooding reports.

The proposed merger between two massive retailing groups, Boots and the House of Fraser, has been referred to the Monopolies Commission. The Commission's decision will be important not only for the City but for retailers in general. They will want to know whether approval would mean other attempts to form new groupings; and of course they will also be somewhat apprehensive as to whether or not a new retail group with sales of £600m is likely to emerge. But the case also throws light on the way in which the Government is now conducting its competition policy.

Recent articles regarding investment valuation and appraisal published in Journal of Valuation have included a number of commentaries which either review or analyse previous contributions. The recent reviews of Baum and Yu, and the comments of Fraser and Greaves, warrant a reply from one of the instigators of these models which have been reviewed or examined. In this reply, a few minor points are answered. The major thrust of Baum's analysis, that a place exists for both DCF and Real Value techniques, is confirmed on the grounds that both models are reconcilable and the existence of both will help towards a general understanding of contemporary techniques. This paper argues for a change in direction in the debate, from construction to use of models, and for this reason the contributions of Fraser are seen as significant. Fraser's views on the use of models are concluded to be conflicting and it is suggested that the debate should be directed to what ought to be, with less importance being placed on what is actually, happening. Only in this way can change, if thought to be desirable, take place.

Investment returns from property derive from rental income and change in value, and a property's value is a function of the current rent and the expected future rent. So, ultimately, investment returns derive from rent, and successful investment will depend on an understanding of the principles and forces which explain the market's determination of rental value. This paper explains the significance of supply elasticity to the determination of rental value and investigates the probable elasticities of the four main types of investment property. It concludes that, due to the very inelastic supply of farmland and prime High Street shops, trends in rental growth will reflect the profitability of occupation whereas, in general, the rental value of office and industrial property will tend to reflect development costs, due to their relatively elastic supply. The article investigates how far such predictions appear to be supported by evidence and briefly discusses the relative impact of obsolescence on the four property types.

In the 1970s, yields on UK commercial investment property appear to have been influenced principally by the cost of long term capital and the rate of rental growth. Consequently, yields tended to respond to the economic cycle, falling in times of economic recovery and rising when the economy moved into recession. However, in the 1980s so far, yield trends appear anomalous by comparison. Yields failed to rise on the advent of the recession in 1980–81, despite a sharp rise in the cost of capital, yet rose in 1982 just when the economy began to emerge from recession, and have since continued to rise as economic recovery and rental growth have gathered pace. This paper seeks to explain recent movements in investment property yields and to reconcile these with trends in the 1970s. It concludes that the behaviour of yields in the 1980s can be explained by the dominance of institutional investors in the property market, and by their perception of the changing risk attributes of property (compared with alternative investments) which have resulted from changes taking place in the investment markets and the UK economy.

It is conventional to assume that property investments in the UK are priced on the basis that investors require a total return approximately 2 per cent above the current redemption yield on long dated gilts. Some yield premium seems intuitively appropriate due to certain apparent disadvantages of property relative to gilts, eg higher risk, poorer liquidity and greater transfer and management costs. However, the purpose of this paper is to illustrate that such apparent demerits are largely illusory, and to promote the view that investors in growth freeholds need require no yield premium, and indeed may justifiably accept a discount on yields available from long dated gilts valued around par.

This chapter discusses the legal and political process whereby indigenous peoples in Chile have demanded, and failed to be granted, constitutional recognition. By identifying indigenous peoples as groups that suffer from both misrecognition and maldistribution, I demonstrate political authorities' and legal scholars' lack of understanding toward indigenous peoples' demands since the resumption of democracy, in the late 1980s. I discuss the way in which indigenous peoples ultimately resort to the law from outside, i.e., international human rights law, to challenge the local understandings and the contours of a Constitution that fails to include the most disadvantaged group in Chilean society.

This paper investigates the risk incurred in UK property investment by the major investing institutions. The historic variability of investment returns from property is compared with that from long dated British government bonds (gilts) and ordinary shares (equities) using data from the JLW Property Index.1 A variety of definitions of risk are examined in order to assess the relative risk of property, considered both in isolation and as an integral part of the overall institutional portfolio. The investigation concludes that, since the late 1960s, property has involved significantly less risk than either of the two alternative investments.

Online database revenues up 28% Amidon/Litman, a consulting and research firm out of New Jersey, has released a report that states online revenues for 1988 were $1.03 billion for eight business‐to‐business markets. This represents a 28% growth rate over 1987, according to the report Vertical Information Markets & Company Profiles: A Dance Card. It contains lists of interesting information products and players suitable for acquisition, joint venture and product development.