Arise Sir Jimmy Goldsmith, you have a worthy successor. Sierra Trading, a secretive US 'vulture fund' that targets underperformers, has been cast as a villain in the mould of the worst corporate raiders.
And if it is allowed to get away with its antics - which, it must be stressed, are perfectly legal - Britain might yet import some of the nastiest, dirtiest corporate tactics, that ravaged the United States in the 1980s, but have now been all but stamped out across the Atlantic. Or so predicts Hermes, one of the City's most powerful institutions with more than £50 billion to spend.
However, the real target of Hermes' spleen is Scottish Investment Trust (SIT), run by some of Scotland's biggest movers and shakers. According to Hermes, SIT has made a pact with the devil. Worse, its blue-blooded chairman, the venerable Sir Angus Grossart, has dismissed Hermes' concerns with a patrician flick of the wrist. In doing so, he has turned the spotlight on the cosy, tight-knit Edinburgh financial community and the olde worlde sector of investment trusts, which the Scots dominate.
'What is odd about this industry is that it is run for itself. Boards are just stuffed with worthies,' says an agitated David Pitt-Watson, the commercial director of Hermes Lens Asset management, an Anglo-US joint venture set up quietly three years ago to shake up complacent companies. 'We prefer to work with managements to solve problems. We offered support against Sierra. But what they've done is to cave in to something very close to "greenmail". They've favoured one particular shareholder over another. So now it's no more Mr Hermes Nice Guy.'
At first sight New Jersey-based Sierra, a relatively small arbitrage house, hardly seems to fit the shadow of Carl Icahn, the veteran stock market predator who claimed to have discovered 'greenmail' by accident in the 1980s. Buying a strategic stake and then persuading, cajoling or simply coercing companies to buy it back at a tidy profit was more lucrative than trying to take over the whole shooting match.
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