A millionaire for half an hour

For a few moments , a young London surveyor was able to forget about his £2,500 over - draft after finding bonds wor th £4 million in the gutter outside the Stock Exchange . "I was a multi-millionaire for half an hour," Mr Martin Ritchie , aged 23, said yes - t erda y after picking up four Certificates of Deposit, each worth £1 million in Throg - morton Street, London. The bonds had fallen from the briefcase of a messenger who worked for a subsidiary of S G Warburg , the merchant bankers. According to a Warburg spokesman , they are used to "oil the wheels in the ebb and

flow of the short-term securi - ties market". Mr Ritchie, who saw the pieces of paper fall as he waited for a client on the opposite side of the road, immediately contacted the subsidiary company, Rowe and Pitman , to let it know he had the £4 million. "They had already been searching for them," he said. "They sounded very relieved I had found them." When a messenger arrived to collect the precious docu - men t s , he handed Mr Ritchie , who lives in Stoke Newington, north London, a magnum of Laurent-Perrier champagne. Warburg pointed out last night that the bonds could

have been cashed m or used to secure a loan, but said it was still "very happy and grateful to Mr Ritchie ". The Bank of England said that, in theory, the Certificates of Deposit could be cashed at banks on their due date, usually three months after...