Keeping track of business: A quiz

It was a year for some to remember, for others to forget. How much of it do you recall? Here's a quiz, just for fun.

1. The year in question

THE Queen called it 'annus horribilis'. But who:

(a) Predicted '1992 is going to be another damn tough year'?

(b) Found himself without words to describe current trading, after 12 months ago calling 1990 'the toughest year in my lifetime'?

(c) Mused that 'the 1990s sure aren't like the 1980s'?

(d) Said the key to business suc cess in the 1990s lay in 'the man agement of surprise'?

2. From the

gentle sex THE FIRST first full year of Opportunity 2000, the official drive to promote women in the workplace, was one of very mixed feminist fortunes.

(a) Who made pounds 12m selling control of the company she founded?

(b) Who is the only woman cur rently to be found in Grade 1 of the civil service?

(c) How many of the FT-SE 100

companies employ women fi nance directors?

(d) Which talking doll had to be re-engineered to stop saying 'Math class is tough'?

(e) Which company was ordered to pay out dollars 157m, a world record, in sex discrimination damages?

(f) Who brought 60,000 protest ing farmers on to the streets of Strasbourg?

(g) Who runs Business in the Community?

(h) Whose authoritative survey found that 43 per cent of working women still feel they are 'denied the key to the men's club'?

3. Money

spinners

WHO:

(a) Thought 30p was sweet enough to help the medicine go down?

(b) Holds the title World's First Welfare Billionaire?

(c) Lost pounds 40m from his per sonal fortune the day he cut his company's dividend for the first time in 20 years?

(d) Won a Nobel prize for ex plaining, among other things, the economics of divorce?

(e) Sent a message from jail of fering dollars 900m to his outstanding lawsuits?

(f) Put in his own redundancy claim, after presiding over the elimination of 250,000 industrial jobs and claiming he had never fired anyone?

(g) Became Britain's biggest-ever bankrupt, with debts of more than pounds 400m?

4. By the

numbers

STATISTICS rule our lives, they say, but many people cannot even get the order of magnitude right. Test your skill and knowledge on these:

(a) The permits-to-pollute were sold this year, under the rules of America's 1990 Clean Air Act. Was the price for the right to pour one ton of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere set at (a) 30 cents, (b) dollars 3, (c) dollars 30, (d) dollars 300, (e) dollars 3,000?

(b) Currency speculation regularly infuriates governments, hu miliates finance ministers and sends economies reeling off course. But do you actually know how much money is bought and sold each day across the world's foreign ex change markets? Is it (a) pounds 900m, (b) pounds 9bn, (c) pounds 90bn, (d) pounds 900bn, (e) pounds 9,000bn?

(c) After the Great Crash of Oc tober 1987 the US security mar kets introduced a series of

And for your bonus: which heavily promoted cheese vanished from the supermarket shelves this year?

Number 13. Unlucky for some]

Thirteen of the best-known companies lost their top men this year. A few retired with honour, but most were fired, dumped or ousted in boardroom coups. Can you put names to the faces, and identify the hot seats they vacated?

Names for the faces

Leopold Pirelli

Geoffrey Bradman

Bob Horton

John Kerridge

Karl Heinz Kaske

Sir John Quinton

Gerald Ratner

Sir Nigel Broackes

Robert Stempel

Gerald Ronson

Barry Diller

Lord Stevens

Paul Reichmann

(Photograph omitted)

Brands on the run

Lots of familiar labels and trademarks changed hands, went walkabout or otherwise had an adventurous year. Can you remember which of these:

(a) Went back to Germany after 50 years of Hitler-related exile?

(b) Advertised itself as having been 'in my previous existence . . . an Eldorado script'?

(c) Went Dutch?

(d) Returned to the US where it was born, 104 years ago?

(e) Was offered by Girobank as a reward for opening a high-interest account?

(f) Stayed French, escaping a watery Swiss grave?

(g) Shared the fate of the Yuppies who loved it?

(h) Broke free from its giant former parent

'to target the C1, C2 and D socio-economic groups which make up 70 per cent of the population'?

(i) Claimed its 100-millionth customer?

(j) Received permission to re-irrigate the desert wastes?

Roquefort cheese

Glenmorangie whisky

Swatch watches

Coca-Cola

Ruddle's brew

Posh and Porsche

Babycham's baby

Parker pen

Nivea Creme

UNLUCKY FOR SOME

IN the faces quiz, the 13 top men who vacated boardroom hot seats this year - and their well-known companies - were:

(a) Bob Horton of BP

(b) Sir John Quinton of Barclays

(c) KarlHeinz Kaske of Siemens

(d) Barry Diller of the US Fox Film Studios

(e) Paul Reichmann of the Olympia & York property empire

(f) Tyre king Leopold Pirelli

(g) Robert Stempel of the giant General Motors

(h) Lord Stevens at the helm of Invesco MIM

(i) John Kerridge of Fisons

(j) Gerald Ratner of Ratner's

(k) Gerald Ronson of Heron

(l) Sir Nigel Broackes of Trafalgar House

(m) Geoffrey Bradman of the Rosehaugh property company

And for your bonus, the heavily promoted cheese that vanished from supermarkets was Lymeswold.

BRANDS ON THE RUN

IN the product picture quiz, these are some brands that made news:

(a) Nivea went back to Germany after 50 years.

(b) Nouvelle toilet paper claimed it may have been a recycled Eldorado script.

(c) Ruddles real ale went Dutch as part of the Grolsch empire.

(d) The Parker Pen company returned to the US where it was born.

(e) A bottle of Glenmorangie was Girobank's lure for customers.

(f) Rocquefort cheese was bought back from Nestle by the French after the Perrier deal.

(g) Porsche cars slumped, as did the Yuppies who loved them.

(h) Babycham broke free from Allied-Lyons to sell down market.

(i) The Swatch watch claimed its 100-millionth customer.

(j) Coca-Cola poured into the desert as Arab states lifted a 40-year ban.

Did you keep track of business?

Here are the names and faces and the deeds and words that made business headlines in 1992

Words to be remembered

(1) THE YEAR IN QUESTION

(a) Dominic Cadbury, chief executive of Cadbury Schweppes, told shareholders '1992 is going to be another damn tough year'.

(b) Sir Clifford Chetwood, long- serving chairman of Wimpey, was at a loss for words in 1992 after having already called 1990 'the toughest year in my lifetime'.

(c) It was US tycoon Donald Trump who discovered that 'the 1990s sure aren't like the 1980s'.

(d) Sir Derek Birkin, chairman of RTZ, unlocked the future by saying the key to success in the 1990s was in 'the management of surprise'.

(2) THE GENTLE SEX

(a) Dr Jean Shanks, chairman and managing director of JS Pathology, made pounds 12m when she sold a controlling share of the company she founded.

(b) Barbara Mills, the Director of Public Prosecutions, is the only woman in Grade 1 of the UK civil service.

(c) BTR's Kathleen O'Donavan and Sainsbury's Rosemary Thorne are the only two women finance directors of Footsie companies.

(d) Mattel's talking Barbie doll had to be re-engineered to make it stop saying 'Math class is tough'.

(e) California's State Farm Insurance paid a record dollars 157m in sex discrimination damages to 814 women it didn't promote.

(f) Carla Hills, chief US Gatt negotiator, brought the farmers on to the streets of Strasbourg.

(g) Julia Cleverdon is the chief executive of Business in the Community.

(h) Britain's Institute of Management found in a survey that 43 per cent of working women still feel they are 'denied the key to the men's club'.

(3) MONEY SPINNERS

(a) Alan Sugar thought 30p a share was enough to take Amstrad back into private ownership.

(b) Ross Perot became known as America's first welfare billionaire after computerising the US social security system.

(c) Tiny Rowland lost pounds 40m the day he cut Lonrho's dividend for the first time in 20 years.

(d) Nobel winner Gary Becker of the University of Chicago wrote about the economics of divorce.

(e) Michael Milken, the jailed junk bond king, offered dollars 900m to settle his lawsuits.

(f) Sir Ian MacGregor, ex-head of British Steel and British Coal, claimed redundancy after overseeing the elimination of 250,000 jobs.

(g) Kevin Maxwell became Britain's biggest bankrupt with debts of over pounds 400 million.

(4) BY THE NUMBERS

(a) D - dollars 300.

(b) D - pounds 900bn.

(c) C - 23.

(d) D - 200 per cent.

(e) C - 101.

(5) CORPORATE AFFAIRS

(a) ICI came out from under a 2.8 per cent cloud when Lord Hanson finally decided to sell his minority stake.

(b) Caves Byrrh of France, a subsidiary of Pernod-Ricard, exported 3 million litres of vodka to Russia.

(c) Bayer, the German drug firm, paid pounds 10m to Pharmaceutical Proteins of Edinburgh for Tracy, the genetically engineered sheep.

(d) Jensen called in liquidators after finding just one buyer for its latest sports car.

(e) Lloyd's of London brought in the motorcycling ex-monk Peter Middleton as its chief executive.

(6) ON THE GRAPEVINE

(a) Laurence Summers, chief economist for The World Bank, commented on the 'impeccable' economic case for dumping toxic waste in the Third World.

(b) George Davies, ex-head of Next, felt like a 'different man' when he launched his latest mail order venture, Xtend.

(c) Kenneth Baker MP sees the 'United Europe of States'.

(d) John Smith MP called for the bill on Norman Lamont's largesse.

(e) Theo Waigel, German finance minister, said he was going out into Bath after refusing to cut interest rates at a European summit.

(f) And it was Norman Lamont who was singing in his bath after taking the pound out of the ERM.

(8) BEATING

THE DRUM

BRITAIN still leads the world in the engineering and building of high- performance racing cars. The overwhelming majority of Formula One starters this year - and the same is true of the other main categories - were built by a group of home-grown mechanical wizards based in and around Oxfordshire.

(7) ANY OTHER BUSINESS

(a) A statement as to whether the company follows Sir Adrian Cadbury's Code of Corporate Governance - and if not, why not.

(b) Descendants of C&J Clark, whose footwear empire is based in the nearby Somerset village of Street.

(c) The US dollar, established by the Mint Act of 1792.

(d) Standardising the 20 varieties of electric plug.

(e) Argentina, when a flood of notes with duplicated serial numbers went into circulation - by error.

(f) BT boss Ian Vallance. Loughborough University awarded both men honorary MAs.

(Photograph omitted)