His 25 per cent stake, now a quarter of nothing at all, was worth the best part of pounds 20m a year ago.Calling time on the electricity companiesElectricity is slippery stuff. You cannot warehouse it and you cannot forecast its price more than 24 hours in advance. Now it appears that you may not be able to buy it from a supplier of your choice quite as soon as promised either. It will come as cold comfort to shareholders but the warning signs were flashing bright red at Chamberlain right from the word go. Shareholders who allowed the company to thumb its nose at a string of corporate governance guidelines have only themselves to blame for the loss of their investment.Why, they might have asked themselves at the time, was Dan Sullivan, an American venture capitalist with a far from flawless record, allowed to combine the roles of chairman and chief executive, leaving unchecked the ambitious expansion plans that ultimately left the company drowning in debt? Worse, why was he allowed to sit at the head of a remuneration committee that concocted the bonus scheme from hell and had it waved through by unquestioning investors? The one comfort shareholders can glean from this sorry episode is that Mr Sullivan did at least put his money where his mouth was. They were suspended yesterday at 11p but, with debts of pounds 34m hanging around the shoe makers neck, they are worthless.

Rarely has cobblers been a more appropriate description of a company. It is hard to imagine a more scandalous example of this than Chamberlain Phipps, for this was a company floated on the stock market just two years ago. To call in receivers just a year after the company reported record results and awarded its chairman a controversial performance bonus that doubled his salary, makes it seem doubly worse.The biggest questions must be asked of the company’s advisers, HSBC Samuel Montagu and Credit Lyonnais Laing, for it was their stamp of approval that allowed the company to be floated.The latter, as house broker, recommended buying the shares at 163p only a year ago. But as exporters of things that ordinary people can understand, we are on the road to oblivion. If we cannot hold our own even in the world’s strongest growth markets, where on earth are we going to succeed? Mars? Time for some serious soul searching.Small comfort at Chamberlain PhippsAll those new found concerns over AIM, Ofex and other matched bargain markets in high risk companies that nobody has ever heard of, has made us forget that the real money is still lost on the main exchange with all its safeguards, listing requirements and high voltage investor protection rules. Cast adrift from Europe, there is every reason to believe our performance would be even worse.The German figures fail to take account of Britain’s still impressive performance in financial and business services – invisibles Here our showing is still a respectable one. There is no reason to believe the figures have been distorted.

Britain’s biggest failing, judging by the breakdown, has been in the high growth economies of Asia. No comparable analysis of world export performance is produced in Britain (now, why do you think that is?) and the integrity and accuracy of the German survey is obviously open to question.All the same, the picture it paints is probably about right. Again there is no obvious explanation for this, for Britain’s historic and cultural links with Asia should have given its exporters a natural advantage.Furthermore, Britain’s dismal showing in these markets (our share over the last 10 years has fallen from 3.3 per cent to 2.2 per cent) rather gives the lie to those Eurosceptics who naively and vainly believe Britain could make its way outside Europe by strengthening trading links with the Far East and the Americas.We are already doing badly in the Far East even with the bridgehead into Europe our islands offer by way of return. It was the year when the currency advantage obtained by leaving the ERM should have been making British exporters significantly more competitive in world markets. And it was the year in which British manufacturing was meant to be rediscovering its pride, showing the rest of Europe the way in terms of productivity and innovation.
If figures from the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry are to be believed, the good news story being put about by ministers and industrialists is a long way from the truth Indeed, it seems to be little more than wishful thinking.

But hardest to explain of all – except in anything but the most disturbing terms – is why Britain should have seen its relative share of world trade in continued decline. This, you will recall, was meant to be the year of the export-led recovery. 1995 was the year when the yen climbed into the stratosphere; even the most supercharged of industrial mountaineers would have found it hard to survive for long in the rarified atmosphere occupied by the yen at that time. It is equally easy to see why France, still clinging to its ill-conceived franc fort policy, should also be suffering. Harder to explain is how Germany managed to increase its share and in the process regain its position as second largest exporter; the German mark was also a strong currency in 1995. It is easy to see why Japan’s share of world export markets in manufactured goods should have fallen last year.

Pearson is believed to be eager to see a deal completed with Flextech, particularly if the latter reaches a joint venture agreement with the BBC to launch the new subscription channels.Both Pearson and the US Cox Communications group – which is also negotiating to sell its stakes in Gold and Living – are understood to be supporting Flextech’s efforts to create a viable “second force” in UK pay television, to compete against BSkyB, the dominant player.. These are planned to be launched later this year, and would form the core of the BBC’s commitment to digital TV from 1997.But Pearson, which owns 15 per cent in both Gold and Living, is still holding out for contracts to provide transmission services and TV programmes to a range of Flextech channels in return for selling its stakes.Pearson already generates revenues of pounds 100m a year providing transmission services – generating the broadcast signal and delivering it to the transmitter – for a range of channels, including UK Living, and has also won a contract to provide similar services for the new Channel 5, in which it has a 24 per cent stake. The figure will impress the BBC, which owns 20 per cent of UK Gold, the archive hits channel featuring BBC and Thames Television programmes, and which can sell half its holding if it chooses, for an immediate profit of at least pounds 10m.
The valuation could also serve as a benchmark in negotiations between the BBC and two pay-TV companies, Flextech and BSkyB, which are vying for the right to jointly develop six subscription channels featuring BBC programming. Negotiators at Pearson Television and Flextech have agreed on a valuation of about pounds 200m for UK Gold and UK Living, as part of talks to consolidate Flextech’s control of the leading pay-TV channels. One suggestion was to phase in competition by postal areas.Offer said that the industry had known since 1990 when the domestic market was due to be opened to competition, giving it eight years to prepare for the changes It added that it saw no reason at present for a delay..