Perhaps it is nothing more than jealousy of the chief executive of Scoot
Perhaps it is nothing more than jealousy of the chief executive of Scoot , the interactive information service, who has built up a paper fortune of £100m by the tender age of 32. Whatever, the Dutch-born former corporate financier has had to survive a sustained campaign of vilification in the murky world of internet bulletin boards. He has withstood the circulation of a document containing allegations that Scoot's critical subscriber numbers have been deliberately exaggerated. Now he finds himself at the centre of another potential scandal a week after a newspaper story appeared suggesting that Vivendi, the French media group that owns almost 20 per cent of Scoot, planned to buy the rest of it. Scoot shares promptly leapt 21 per cent, only subsiding after an announcement at tea-time on Monday poured cold water on the tale. The belated nature of Scoot's rebuttal afforded plenty of time for shareholders with plenty to gain from the story's credibility to ride the buying wave and sell their shares. The reaction of one of the City's faster traders was typical.
"The Monaco mob made £50m out of it, you know," he muttered.He was referring to a group of wealthy investors based in the principality with a reputation for knowing - or even contriving - tomorrow's news today. The problem for Mr Bonnier was his delay in denying Vivendi's interest. Who else had both the power to place the story and the ability to profit from it?Then there is another version of events. There is reputed to be a different group of rather more bearish speculators who have long held the belief that Scoot shares are too high.
These characters - who are said to have sold the shares short in order to profit from a price fall - were responsible for the anti-Scoot document which circulated, as well as a series of damaging newspaper articles, it is alleged. Perhaps the tale of Vivendi's supposed interest was disseminated in order to teach the Cassandras a lesson. And who would want to do that?Either way, there is no evidence that Mr Bonnier has been guilty of anything other than a single-minded commitment to Scoot's future. Yet his progress has been burdened by a company history punctuated at almost every turn by acrimony and intrigue. It is a saga that boasts a cast of some of the City's most colourful characters.Scoot's roots date from the intake of corporate financiers recruited in the early 1990s by Swiss Bank This included two notables.
