(CORRECTED) Bunhill: More bucks wanted

CORRECTION (PUBLISHED 28 AUGUST 1994) APPENDED TO THIS ARTICLE

AS BEFITS a former equity salesman for UBS and Merrill Lynch, Jim Parton is greedy. Not content with the fact that his account of City life * was the second best-seller last week in the City's bookshops, he hopes for more. Reading of the publicity gained by Terry Smith, another graduate of the UBS Phillips & Drew school of hard knocks, the former salesman wrote wistfully: 'I hope P&D sue me.' Through what sounded like firmly gritted teeth, a spokesperson for the Swiss-owned brokers said merely: 'We haven't made any comment, and, no, we're not proposing to sue.' (Smith's battle ended with an out-of- court settlement last week).

Parton pinned his hopes on remarks like 'P&D pundits are often interviewed on telly and quoted in the papers, a sure sign of mediocrity,' and his description of his former boss, Hector Sants, the head of equities, as 'a thick, ignorant, abrasive, card-carrying nasty bastard'. He was more tolerant of his next, and final, City employers, Merrill Lynch, though did say that their management 'was as chaotic as at P&D'

Not that young Parton's bile is purely insitutional. He's equally beastly about his wife Misa, a Japanese of Korean descent who, he claimed, had become HAV-positive (relax, the initials stand for Hermes Armani Vuitton).

Parton is clearly trying to emulate Liars Poker, Michael Lewis's classic tale of life at Salomon Brothers. Parton is now translating Japanese stock market research into English, a far cry from his former glory, and indeed from the fate of his hero. For Lewis has just been given a dollars 1m contract to write the life of the man whose book beat Parton to the Number One slot - George Soros.

* Jim Parton, The Bucks Stop Here, Pocket Books, pounds 5.99.

CORRECTION

AN ITEM published on 17 July referred to remarks made in a book by Mr Jim Parton about his former boss. These remarks were stated by us to refer to Mr Hector Sants, the head of equities at UBS Limited. It has been brought to our attention that this was incorrect and that Mr Hector Sants was not the person referred to in the book. We apologise to him for this error and for any embarrassment this may have caused him, in recognition of which we have agreed to make a donation to a charity nominated by Mr Sants.