City File: Stewart Newton

WHEN an up-and-coming fund manager buys a big stake in a merchant bank that also depends heavily on fund management, outsiders will detect either an incipient bid or a professional compliment. Yet shares in merchant bank Singer & Friedlander remained unimpressed on last Thursday's announcement that Newton Investment Management had accumulated a 16.6 per cent stake, in the names of a number of institutional clients.

Stewart Newton denies any malice aforethought - he simply thinks the shares are good value and that Singers is one of the few banks without any black holes in its loan portfolio. At 52p, near their high for 1992/93, the yield remains a generous 6.4 per cent and the p/e an undemanding 11.4.