Dim the lights as another quoted company sells up

THERE is something of a parable of our times about the TClarke takeover deal unveiled this morning.

The business, which has always been headquartered in London and listed here since 1949, was a genuine pioneer. When impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte decided that his audiences at Savoy Theatre should be the first in the world to enjoy electric lighting it was to Tommy Clarke that he turned to install the wiring.

The company he founded, TClarke, went on to become the wiring installers of choice for royalty and nobility during the pre-war years. There is still a refreshingly old fashioned feel about a business that has kept it founders’ name for 135 years and has retained its independence through good times and bad.

Until today.

TClarke is one of the London stock exchange’s oldest continually traded stocks. Its directors complain today about the under valuation and illiquidity of the shares in justifying their decision to sell out to purchaser Regent Gas. Familiar laments for many of the smaller and medium sized quoted companies turning their backs on a London listing.

Regent was founded more than a century after TClarke in 1996 with a £30,000 investment from Nandlal Valecha, an entrepreneur who moved to the UK from India in the 1980s. Regent is now owned and run by his son Deep.

TClarke will no doubt live on and perhaps thrive away from the public arena. After all, despite its long and illustrious past its value had only risen to £91 million. Its listing as a public company in London, once seen as a corporate badge of honour and a sign of maturity as a business, is now no longer of any value and in fact a hindrance.

What a sad state of affairs. Perhaps they should dim the lights at the Savoy Theatre as a mark of respect for a British company that led the world but will soon be independent no more.