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SCMP Reporter

LUCKY investors in Nugan Hand (Hong Kong) will no doubt be nursing hangovers the size of the Golden Triangle following a weekend of heavy celebration.

   Some 15 years after the Australian merchant bank crashed and three years after 30 cents in the dollar was paid to creditors, the investors in the local arm are to be paid out again, according to an advert last week.

  Official receiver Robin Hearder described this outfit to us as a 'semi-licenced deposit taking company'.

   This wasn't quite the way we remembered it so, after prompting, Mr Hearder remembered that the bank did have a certain amount of drug money run through it.

   The bank collapsed in 1980 after its chairman was found shot dead in his Mercedes amid some accusations of criminality including allegedly being used by the US CIA to launder monies from drug smuggling.

  According to Mr Hearder, there were a great number of local investors in Nugan Hand and some of the creditors claims were very complex and it has taken this long to untangle them. Some claims have now been rejected and so the monies they claimed are to be paid to the approved creditors.

  Quite who the lucky creditors and unlucky would-be-creditors are, we can't say, as Mr Hearder says only other creditors can be given that information.

  He probably was worried we'd send them begging letters asking for a share in their new 1.97 per cent payout. Don't spend it all in one shop, folks.

Prophet-loss  GENERAL Electronic shareholders are tantalised by a glimpse of the future of their company in the Deutsche Morgan Grenfell letter of advice on GenElec's privatisation bid - in which shareholders are being offered about half what they paid for their shares in 1987 despite good profits for at least five years.

  MG, who recommend acceptance of the offer, says that the manufacture and sale of 'Caller ID' telephones will boost sales in the telecoms division next year.

  A Caller ID is a telephone with an LCD display. Caller ID is a service provided by service providers, not a techno gimmick on a phone.

  Now the only mystery remaining is why anyone can think it reasonable or fair to repurchase the shares at less than what they were sold for in the IPO.

Round about  GOLF is an expensive game, but Sam Torrance, member of Scottish team at the big game held over the border in Mission Hills at the weekend, discovered how expensive a single ball can be.

  Sam had his ball pinched by a spectator on the 18th hole. If a ball is lost, two penalty strokes are added to the score.

  For Scotland, it meant the difference between finishing in second place and finishing third - a blow worth US$12,500 to the team.

  Unfortunately, there weren't enough Putonghua-speaking stewards to explain to the crowd that golf wasn't like baseball and you didn't get to keep the ball if it landed in the crowd.

  While Sam and the team were digesting the cost of a ball, some people in Hong Kong were just staggered by the cost of a round.

  In the HK Open Amateur tournament held at Disco Bay this weekend, a chap we know decided to enter on the basis that there was no other way he would get three or possibly four rounds of golf for $300.

  He hasn't been in town too long, and although he only scraped in under the seven handicap bar, he didn't expect the tournament would be too stressful. He was horrified when he realised that top players had jetted in from all round the region.

  Wondering whether the phenomenon of entering contests to get a round was common, we called the Hong Kong Golf Association's Michael Long.

  'Everyone has their own rationale,' he drawled. 'If that was his, perhaps he's playing the wrong game.' Rebel offensive  BAD news for English speakers. The Government's intellectual property department has just allowed these terms to be registered as trade marks:   'Afternoon tea'; 'Lemon and Soda'; 'Where'; 'Square'; 'Clout'; and 'Zoom'.

  We got these from the latest Government Gazette, so it's official.

   Pretty soon we can expect the Japanese maker of conductor's batons (honestly) which has registered 'Afternoon Tea' to start collecting royalties from the civil service every time the words are used. Hong Kong probably will be bankrupt in weeks.

  Users of Chinese characters also are in trouble as the characters which mean 'Affectionate' have been nabbed.

  You can't fight this stuff. We're going straight out to register the words 'and' and 'the'.



Nugan Hand makes hangover downpayment