PERSONAL FILE

sb As a pillar of the City of London's select financial clique and a graduate of Eton and Cambridge, Geoffrey Cecil Eley, 58, seemed a most unlikely candidate to outrage his peers by nationalizing a private steel company. Yet that, in effect, is what Eley did last week when Richard Thomas & Baldwins, Britain's only remaining nationalized steel company, won its fight to take over privately run Whitehead Iron & Steel. R.T.B.'s chairman for four years, Eley moved into action with government approval when the rival steel firm of Stewarts & Lloyds tried to take over Whitehead--a move that, if successful, would have deprived Eley's firm of its best customer. A quiet, very polite man who lists one of his recreations as "living privately," Eley shrewdly bought up Whitehead shares by raising Stewarts & Lloyds' offer, won 50% of them at $12 a share. Since nationalized R.T.B. is a money-losing proposition, the British taxpayer will have to provide the $30.1 million that Whitehead cost.

sb In skating rinks, bowling alleys and on ski slopes made of plastic, Japanese will soon be able to play at one of Japan's most modern resorts, the San-ai Hotel on Hokkaido Island, just an hour's plane ride from Tokyo. Work on the resort began last week when slim and tireless Kiyoshi Ichimura, 62, got permission from his backers to go ahead with the ambitious project. Already one of Japan's fastest rising businessmen, whose nine companies sold $61 million worth of goods last year, Ichimura believes that "to stand still is to lose ground"--and he has rarely stood still since World War II. Picked as president of Riken Sensitized Paper Co. when the U.S. broke up the Riken cartel after the war, Ichimura made it Japan's biggest photocopying-machine producer. He rapidly moved into manufacturing cameras and watches, set up a lingerie factory, won a Coca-Cola franchise, and last month opened a ten-story ladies' apparel store on Tokyo's Ginza. Ichimura attributes his unusual career to an equally unusual source: "a Great Sulk" that began when, at 15, he was refused money to attend an acrobatic show--and ended only when he decided to go into business for himself.

sb When the Philippine Republic decided to try to raise its gross national product by $860 million in five years, the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development both pledged funds to form a private development corporation to help encourage new businesses. The problem was finding an able and independent boss who would be acceptable to government reformers, the Philippine business community, and overseas bankers. The man was finally found, and last week Francisco Ortigas Jr., 56, new president-treasurer of the Development Corporation of the Philippines, flew off to Washington to arrange $22 million in loans. Roman Catholic Ortigas is a successful businessman with a highly regarded talent for organization. Branching out from his own insurance and real estate business, he has gone into meat packing, sugar refining and cement, written a book called Planting Rice Is Never Fun. As head of the new corporation, 70% controlled by Philippine citizens, he will decide where to extend long-term loans to help Philippine mining, agriculture and industry.

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