Sharing I.O.S. ruins
1970John Crawford Read the scan at ETOL (PDF) →Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: headlines and words can be misread, and a caption or advert can run into the text. For anything you quote, read the scan.
WITH THE announcement that the asset values of mutual funds owned by Investors Overseas Services dropped by $300 million during May, the IOS crisis takes a fresh turn for the worse.
The long-awaited 1969 accounts will have to appear soon and are unlikely to cheer anyone up.
IOS is registered in Canada, and under Canadian law the full accounts must be in the post by June 14, in time for the June shareholders' meeting.
Meanwhile after the collapse of John King's attempted salvage operation, the air is thick with rumours of large banks riding to the rescue.
The problem for those people who entrusted their savings to Bernie Cornfeld to invest for them is: who will rescue them from the rescuers?
The sag in share prices on the world's exchanges has re duced the value of the IOS funds and this had started a run of redemptions by clients feeling unsure of the future of the $2 billion company.
On Monday, Paul Vincent, director-general of the Paris Banque Rothschild, confirmed that his bank was organizing a consortium, which would have to include US banks.
However, King has put $8 million into IOS and will still nominate three directors of a new board.
In Munich, IOS spokesmen had said earlier this week that alks were in progress with several leading German banks, who have now denied this.
In New York, Cornfeld, founder of IOS, has been discussing with the Wall brokers Drexel Harriman Ripley, who headed the underwriters issuing IOS shares last year.
All these moves look rather like the activities of international financial scrap merchants searching for bargains.