New Statesman Scotland
The Ministry of Defence might have felt it was safe from the reforming zeal of the accountants. Yet its highest technical teams are being prepared for privatisation.
The Defence Evaluation Research Agency is going to select a more appealing name before it is offered on the stock market in 2001. DERA incorporates market leadership in advanced materials and information technologies and should raise enough to give it instant admission to the FTSE250 league of top companies.
Less notice is being taken of the MoD's plans for its vast acreage of Scotland. It is second only to the Forestry Commission in its landholdings. The ministry owns the equivalent of Renfrew and Ayrshire or Moray and Banff combined. It is mostly wild country, but includes some of the most beautiful tracts of Scotland.
The realisation that the MoD could raise sizeable sums from relinquishing large chunks of its estates was triggered by the success of the auctions of the United States Forces as they quietly minimise their UK presence. The US Air Force base at Edzell in Angus has just been sold on.
A former MoD estate manager currently runs the biggest private landholding in Scotland. Michael Clarke is chief executive of Buccleuch Estates, the proprietory company of the Duke of Buccleuch's family trusts. He is perfectly placed to advise the ministry on how to open up its ancient and diverse property empire. The money in the mountains and glens will come from eco-tourism in future, rather than from firing ranges or assault courses.
As Scottish & Newcastle drop out of the premier league of UK companies, Thus arrives as the only new Scottish name. Thus? Yep, only a gleam in the eye of ScottishPower executives two years ago. The electricity company realised that its network of power pylons could carry phone lines, too. Now Thus, its telecoms spin-off, is rushing to be the first plc to offer voice traffic over the Internet. It is the leader in Multiple Protocol Label Switching techniques, regarded as the key to conversational ease on the net.
As prices tumble for net access, how can Thus hope to generate revenues ? The answer is they chase the niche of corporate digital traffic. The Glasgow-based company owns Demon Internet, the fourth largest web host in the world, and it claims leadership in another important acronym: Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Lines.
Why does it seem to take every step to disassociate itself from its Scottish origins and base? "Cyberspace is beyond geography," says the company's spokesman, sounding authoritative.
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