Early indications of a disappointing start to the key August car sales period were contradicted by dealers and manufacturers yesterday. Car makers had agreed not to release the figures for the first 10 days of the month, but according to industry sources sales of new ‘P’ registration cars were up just 0.6 per cent compared with August 1995, at 258,000. However, motor analysts said the underlying increase was more like 5 per cent, because August this year included one less selling day than last year.
This would be in line with manufacturers’ forecasts, which indicated sales could rise from 469,000 to 490,000. Some experts were predicting that sales would break through the 500,000 barrier for the first time since 1989.Some manufacturers suggested the picture was more buoyant than the initial statistics suggested, with certain makes experiencing particularly strong growth. The managing director of Skoda UK, Dermot Kelly, said Skoda sales had risen by 20 per cent in the first 10 days of August.He said: “The market is very volatile and it is harder to predict this year, partly because there have been some processing problems with day to day figures and possibly because data returns have been upset by the postal strike.”Skoda, which is part of the Volkswagen group, has had a sales boost from a revised model range, but Mr Kelly said sales of Volkswagens, Audis and Seats were also much improved. “If things continue like this for the rest of the month Volkswagen as a whole could break its record for August sales.”Other makes thought to be increasing sales sharply are Fiat, which has been helped by new models, and BMW.Dealers also pointed to improving consumer confidence boosting demand. However, none of them promised early returns and it could be that Mr Harding has his timing about right.Mr Harding, the man credited with rescuing Chelsea football club, has strong credentials with his successful Harding reinsurance group.

With analysts suggesting that Lloyd’s trust shares are around 10 per cent undervalued against net assets, there is plainly upside to be had The revitalisation of Lloyd’s of London is in for nothing.. The costs of taking on expensive merchant bankers to stitch together a deal and buying out the contracts of managing agents could easily have outweighed many of the benefits.Launched three years ago amid much talk of achieving spectacular long- term returns, none of the Lloyd’s investment trusts have performed well Most of them have been a big disappointment. So far it has been generally poor.Now the sleepy little world that these trusts have been allowed to inhabit is getting something of a rude awakening. Matthew Harding’s new insurance investment vehicle, Benfield and Rea, marched in yesterday to break up the cosy merger planned between two of the middling players, HCG and CLM.That comfortable marriage was meant to give cost savings and dilute risks across a wider number of syndicates.

The combination would have created the second-biggest “spread” investor at Lloyd’s, with pounds 320m underwriting capacity.The aim was reasonable enough, but the economies of scale may always have been illusory. In asking for suggested reforms, the SIB is thus rather putting the cart before the horse, attempting to find avenues of reform before it identifies the real causes and methods of abuse.But to be fair on the regulator, this document is only the first stage of the process. Its purpose is to inform the regulator about how the market works and whether the way it conducts itself is appropriate to present circumstances.The SIB is right to tread carefully, for London is the world’s largest metal trading market and its position is jealously coveted by other financial centres around the world. It risks throwing the baby out with the bath water if it is too gung-ho with its reforms. The ever so gentle, just tell us how it all works approach adopted in yesterday’s consultation paper, is probably about right. Reform comes later.Lloyd’s deal that may not add upThe advent of the Lloyd’s of London investment trusts three or four years ago always was a bit of an oddball thing and their highly specialised nature has duly been reflected in their performance. What’s the world coming to?Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwaterThe Securities and Investments Board rather states the obvious when it spells out in its consultation document on the London Metal Exchange a number of basic principles that markets need to follow if they are to maintain their integrity.Of course they need to be transparent, of course all users need to be treated equally, of course the system that determines prices needs to be reliable and fair, and of course there need to be adequate safeguards to protect the market against manipulation and abuse.The more difficult question, which the document fails to answer, is what is so wrong with the LME that it could have allowed all these principles to be breached by Yasuo Hamanaka of Sumitomo, and before him by other rogue traders on the Wild West frontiers of copper trading.Nor is there any explanation comprehensible to you and me of what actually happened during the Sumitomo affair.