Come clean, Conrad

Come clean, Conrad

IT IS now seven weeks since Conrad Black announced plans to take his Telegraph publishing group private. The aim was for his Hollinger group to buy out the minority shareholders. The shares soared by 54p to 434p on the day of the announcement. Since then, silence.

The affair is particularly poignant for the many institutional shareholders who bought shares from Black last year at close to 600p weeks before he slashed the price of his flagship Daily Telegraph, which sent the shares into free fall.

Shareholders are still smarting. The signs are that Black's advisers, Merrill Lynch, are having trouble coming up with a price that will satisfy both their client and the minority shareholders. At the Telegraph annual general meeting on Wednesday, he will have a chance to enlighten them as to his plans. The shares are artificially buoyed up by his vague promise of a bid. He should either table the bid or explain why not.