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British investors have long resisted highly leveraged buyouts, looking at them as a woolly American phenomenon -- interesting at a distance but unacceptable at close range. Last week Sir James Goldsmith forced them to take another look by launching a surprise $21 billion hostile bid for B.A.T Industries (1988 revenues: $29 billion). Backed by investors Kerry Packer, the Australian industrialist, and Jacob Rothschild, the British financier, Goldsmith plans to break up the sprawling London-based conglomerate and "liberate" far-flung divisions that sell everything from cigarettes (Kool, Viceroy) to insurance in more than 40 countries...
Lord Hanson, the company's chairman, and Sir Gordon White, head of U.S. operations, have built their empire by acquiring assets at bargain prices and then selling off pieces to pay down their debts. As a result, the 102-year-old ConsGold, which owns 49% of Newmont Mining, the largest gold producer in the U.S., is likely to be split up. Some of its divisions may wind up in the hands of the company's first suitor, Minorco...
Michelle Pfeiffer, an Oscar nominee this year for Dangerous Liaisons, makes her stage debut as the grieving countess Olivia. Jeff Goldblum (The Fly) is her pettish steward Malvolio, John Amos (Roots) her drunken uncle Sir Toby Belch and Gregory Hines (The Cotton Club) Toby's companion in ribaldry, the jester Feste. Stephen Collins (Tattinger's) is the duke who desires Olivia, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (The Color of Money) the girl-masquerading-as- a -pageboy sent to plead his case. Among other screen and stage stalwarts rounding out the troupe is Charlaine Woodard (Ain't Misbehavin') as the merrily scheming...
...Hong Kong has been looking back to London for reassurance that the same thing won't happen there when Beijing assumes control of the crown colony in 1997. At the least, Hong Kong's 5.7 million Chinese want the option of moving to Britain. Last week British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe was dispatched to the colony to allay fears, but his visit only managed to make a bad situation worse...
...three months, but naval experts predict the troubles will continue. "The incidents were coincidental," says James McCoy of London's International Institute for Strategic Studies, "but the problem is that the frequency of this sort of incident is higher in the Soviet navy per reactor than anywhere else." Admiral Sir James Eberle, a former NATO commander, agrees: "There are indications that their engineering is not of the standards needed in the nuclear business, that their attitudes to safety means their training standards are not adequate. Soviet subs are more dangerous because they are more liable to accidents...