Knutsford not so awesome as WILink
IT WAS the company, perhaps more than any other, that encapsulated the fin-de-siecle madness which saw frenzied punters chase the FTSE 100 index to within a shade of 7000, an all-time high, on New Year's Eve 1999.
Knutsford, named after a sleepy corner of the Cheshire stockbroker belt but backed by the so-called Awesome Foursome, had no assets but raced up to be valued at £1bn as the market believed whispers that it was set to launch a takeover of Marks & Spencer or Sainsbury's.
Four years later and Knutsford - aka WILink, an investor information company it finally took over in 2000 - today posted a £60,000 loss for 2003 and saw its shares slip a little to give it a sobering value of £24m.
The Knutsford Four have effectively become the Knutsford One as only property developer and Saracens rugby club owner Nigel Wray remains, as chairman with a 22% stake worth £5m. Julian Richer, the hi-fi retail tycoon and backer of Coffee Republic, bailed out two years ago.
One-time Tory frontbencher Archie Norman left in 2001. Norman, Conservative MP for Tunbridge Wells, Kent, remains a retail talisman and has been mentioned as a possible saviour of ailing Sainsbury's. The final member of the four, Wray's long-time property partner Nick Leslau, left at the time of the WILink deal.
WILink today reported a 12% fall in revenues to £17m and said it was still could not pay a maiden dividend.
