IN BRIEF
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• Simon Engineering has bought Telelect, which supplies lorry-mounted cranes — its second US takeover in two months. Last month it bought Nolan, the US fire engine chassis maker.
• The Channel Tunnel is so open to terrorist bomb attack that it should not be built, an explosives expert warns. Dr Sidney Alford says in a letter to New Civil Engineer that a small explosion on the sea bed would destroy the tunnel.
El Tunnels on the European continent such as Mont Blanc and Frejus in the Alps are fitted with explosives which would be detonated in time of war to block the tunnels.
• Controversial Government plans to alter the August registration number prefix system have been dropped, says Transport Secretary Paul Channon.
The move is in line with the unanimous recommendation of a review group commissioned to look into possible changes in the system.
The review was chaired by the Department of Transport and included representatives from industry, the police, and road-user organisations.
• The employee-owned NFC may soon face a problem few other companies can have ever encountered — staff so rich they no longer need to work. Executive chairman Sir Peter Thompson says there are now about 400 workers at the NFC who are worth more than £250,000.
Plans for the NFC to go public should motivate the company's employees, however: quartermillionaires or not. Thompson aims to raise a minimum of 21,500 million in the flotation which, if shareholders agree, will take place in November. NFC share value has dramatically increased since the company was privatised 10 years ago.