The Bargaining Begins

Even before the Board of NFC had given the green light to the consortium idea some discreet feelers had been put out to test possible reactions. On a strictly confidential and unofficial basis a small number of top managers (essentially, those who became the organising committee) were sounded out in general terms about the possibility of management and staff participation. Obviously, on the principle that a secret shared is a secret lost this process had its dangers, and a leak at that stage could have killed the whole thing stone dead. On the other hand, to achieve the £5 million equity input envisaged at that stage would require the equivalent of an average investment of £200 by every one of the NFC’s 25,000 employees, and if the top managers were unlikely to be enthusiastic about the concept of participation, then the idea was a non-starter anyway. Fortunately for the aspiring consortium leaders the reaction was universally favourable, and there was no breach in security. (On a rule of thumb basis the risk of a leak increases in geometric proportion to the number of people who are in on a secret. It is quite remarkable how well the consortium idea was kept under wraps until the first official announcement in June 1981 — by which time the number of people ‘in the know’ ran very comfortably into three figures.)