business

Britain avoids M&A collapse as foreign buyers go Brexit bargain hunting

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I think it should be called a fire sale.

5 ( +8 / -3 )

how many of those sales are manufacturing etc related? and how many of those were just IP sales which means that the new owners will close down the offices in UK to take advantage of those IPs in other countries?

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Buying stock in itself not investment in any meaningful sense. It's what the new owner then does with the company that counts. Its rather comical that a Brexit movement based on fear of immigration and a desire to have British control over British destiny is resulting in increased foreign control over British companies.

4 ( +8 / -4 )

ADK99Jan. 03, 2017 - 09:21AM JST

Its rather comical that a Brexit movement based on fear of immigration and a desire to have British control over British destiny is resulting in increased foreign control over British companies.

Wrong (as always when trying to sneer at the decision of over 17 million voters)....not 'fear of immigration' but concerned at an open door, anyone can enter no matter the number, policy that causes friction even with immigrants enjoying our life-style and do not want that compromised by an explosion of immigrants with no proper housing provisions, social pressures on communities not able to afford or sustain them and teams of workers 'flewn in' controlled by a Mr Big raking off the profits from undercutting the quotes UK based business present. You might have heard that well known 'Remainer' Jeremy Corbyn refer to such practices that need to stop. Right now the open door policy of Germany has real fear and not only them....that is the 'fear' you think we should put up with do you? Not something to laugh and sneer at my friend. 'British Control. British Destiny' v 'Foreign Control over British Companies'. You have almost got it right there except WE decide if we will allow them to buy our companies or not. That is the difference....and not have some inconsequential, deluded and self-serving nonentity in Brussels decide about the fate of the whole of Britain and its well-being and future. We nearly lost it....now we are in the process of taking it back. You want to join us? You are welcome. If all you can do is sneer and misinform....who would procure your biased opinions?

-4 ( +9 / -13 )

Gotta love the article's loaded language: "avoided a collapse."

Yep, a "collapse" that never happened, except in the addled imagination of the Remoaners at Reuters and other elite vested-interest establishments.

A real journalist would have written something like, "avoided the kind of collapse the Remain camp wrongly predicted."

1 ( +8 / -7 )

So, did all those 17 million present a stream of consciousness as their argument for Brexit, Godfrey? I think sneering is the only valid response. You will still have economic fundamentalists and big business controlling your lives - just like before - and they will always favour a free market in capital and "investment" so there will be no citizen oversight in takeovers of British companies. No taking back control. If ever there was a strategic company that economic nationalists would have fought for to remain in British hands it would have been ARM but it went to SoftBank with barely a murmur and its acquisition is now being touted by the apologists for Brexit as being a sign of life and hope. You couldn't make it up. But like Trump voters the Brexiteers will never see the past deceit - £350,000,000 a week for NHS anyone? - and disaster. Luckily you will have to live with the further decline of the UK, not me. Good luck.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

@Godfrey, I was neither sneering nor misinforming, merely commenting on the irony of an acceleration in foreign ownership of British companies as a direct result of Brexit. I think it's fair to say that this is a consequence that most leave voters would have considered undesirable. I don't disagree with many of your points regarding immigration - although I think it is worth noting that Germany's immigration issues are nothing whatsoever to do with the EU; nor is Britain's failure to have a coherent immigration policy. The EU is not the reason why successive British governments have failed to even count immigrants in and out; our failure to control our borders is our own (EU citizens have the right of abode in the UK but that doesn't stop us from checking passports, stopping illegal non-EU immigration to the UK, setting realistic targets and conditions for non-EU immigration etc). We have had the right to decide most of these things and have inexplicably failed to do so.

"WE" are not deciding whether or not to allow "them" to buy our companies or not. Except in special cases it's a free-for-all, just as it was pre-referendum (and will be post the triggering of article 50). The only difference is that it's now cheaper. For better or worse, British business will be far more globally controlled than it was previously; given the power of corporations in the 21st century this seems to me like a ceding of sovereignty rather than a taking back.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Immigration from outside the eu could be controled, but from member states it could not be controled.

A few of thye reasons people voted to leave

1) A person from the poorer eu member could move to the UK and be able to claim unemployment and other benifits, free NHS treatment, etc without having to pay anything.

2) Taking jobs that could have been for a UK person (most jobs they took were low paid and required the person to be hard working. e.g. picking fruit / vegetables by hand. Not many from the UK would take them.)

3) Ones working in the UK getting child tax and other benifits and sending that money back to their home country where their child/children lives.

And more.could be added

Number 2, a lot of the jobs required physical work which many in todays UK youth / young adults are scared of. I left school in 1980 and worked in hotel kitchens. Hard physical work at times with unsocial working hours.

Number 3, if the child/children are located in the UK then they should get the benefit, but if located in theior home country NO benefits for that child/children should be paid.

What the future holds is hard to say. Untill the exit is completed no one can say what the future holds.

.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

The UK could have dramtically reduced immigration levels by placing limits on non-EU immigration, but they chose not to. This why few in the EU had much sympathy for the UK on immigration levels. Over the past decade, hundreds of thousands of brides and grooms from the Indian subcontinent have been imported into the UK under the family reunification visa. This despite the fact that neither India, Pakistan nor Bangladesh are major UK trading partners, none allow tariff free access for UK goods, and all place tight restrictions on foreign investment.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

The UK is now the Walmart of Europe.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

Rupert Murdoch is laughing all the way to the bank.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

Number 3, if the child/children are located in the UK then they should get the benefit, but if located in theior home country NO benefits for that child/children should be paid

This was one of the Brexiteer arguments that seemed reasonable at first glance but didn't make much sense when you stopped to think about it for more than 10 seconds.

If you insist on only paying child benefit if the child is physically in the UK, it only encourages seasonal and temporary workers to bring their children where it would not be necessary or reasonable. Just think about the costs involved in educating that child, the school places that will be taken up, the hiring of a bilingual teaching assistant if the child speaks no English, the cost of unemployment insurance for that teaching assistant when the child goes back home or the parent finds work in another city, the cost of NHS care when the child gets sick, and on and on and on. Isn't it actually better to just pay the child benefit and thank the parents for leaving their child in Bulgaria so we can avoid these additional costs?

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Godfrey King,

How's that promise on side of the bus going?

6 ( +8 / -2 )

@Azzprin

Concerning Point number 1, benefits are not available to EU immigrants until they have started working in the UK.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

You gotta love how the majority of Brexit voters were racists wanting a "stronger Britain" but that it was saved by foreign companies buying up all its assets. So now it's foreign owned. Well done, guys!

3 ( +5 / -2 )

What the future holds is hard to say. Until the exit is completed no one can say what the future holds.

Well I never....we have stirred up the Hornets. At least Azzprin had it spot on (quote above). It seems a lot of wishful thinking is involved in the various comments and the poor fella banging on about the one 'fact' of the so called promise on the 'side of the bus'. Before the referendum vote such as Nigel Farage already made clear he thought it was misleading and that it would be correct to say there would be a surplus from exiting the EU that 'COULD' be spent on the NHS......but I don't know how many times so called facts were stated with the word 'could' by the Remainers and none of it has so-far happened......I am sure Yoshitune could have a laugh at the myriad examples of that if he learnt to read the wider picture instead of boiling his argument down to whatever 'Aunt Sally' would suit his argument (can't you come up with something more adult than that lad? Lots of people may well be laughing all the way to the bank....so what? Sneering at people making money now are we?)..and I am sure Moonraker will be over the moon should all go wrong. 'We' were happy for the 'Son' to go through due to it not being the only like conglomoration that was British based. It is not the only example. But, here we go, 'like Trump voters Brexiters will never see the past deceipt'. Are you being serious Moonraker? You are so full of your own self importance that you really think your opinion matters above millions of people here in the UK, the USA and throughout the world. You dare to sneer at them? Everyone is entitled to their opinion and so are you but you are not even prepared to wait and see what the facts are before stating it is impossible for anything to ever be different than what you hope it will be just to prove yourself right. As for 'smithinjapan'......I suggest you stop listening to your appaling PM Abe (who ought to mind his own business) and look at the reality of the Japanese companies in the UK that want not just to stay here but voted to. As for 'we could have cut immigration by cutting non-EU immigration'......you mean take in the people wandering around Europe thanks to Merkles miscalculation that all you need to do is be kind to people and they will reward you with good behavior. Outside the EU are people throughout the world (a vastly larger area than the EU) that have talents that wish to use them in the UK and we wish to invite here. You think a country is sane to ignore a better talent for a poorer one because of where they live in the world? I thought the whole idea of the EU was not to discriminate against people. And you think we should not have th right to sell our goods anywhere in the world we choose to? You think we should stay in the administrative, economic and political mess the EU has become? 22 years and the EU auditors still will not sign off the EU books.

The only certainty anyone can have at present is that the UK is leaving the EU the terms of which have yet to be finalized. End of story! Don't get yourselves upset over 'could be, may be, should be or even wannabe'.....the only thing that matters is what WILL be and those pontificating above will have no input to that so let us all shut up, shall we?

2 ( +5 / -3 )

The only certainty anyone can have at present is that the UK is leaving the EU the terms of which have yet to be finalized. End of story!

Godfrey, I agree with you on this point. It could be worse than we imagine, it could be better, or it could be a complete fudge. There are far too many complexities and unknowns to make any meaningful predictions. But perhaps that is precisely why it wasn't particularly wise to put such a complex issue to a simple binary referendum?

My only Brexit prediction for 2017 is that the value of the pound currently in your pocket will drop to zero by around mid October. Any Brexiteers want to take me up on this wager?

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Godfrey King, thank you for your well thought out posts. Investors, both domestic (decreased) and foreign (increased), see Britian as a good investment and are willing to put their money and time into a country that is still fundimentally sound.

Inbound M&A was $143.7 billion, again down from 2015 but way above the $85.9 billion annual average for the 5 years to 2015, while domestic M&A was $33.7 billion, down from an average of $53.4 billion over the same period.

The naysayers chose to call millions of British voters racist for wanting to control their own countries. Non-emotional investors, as well as the logical and emotional Brits who voted for Brexit in order to take back more control of their nation knew/believed that the British economy was resilient and could adapt, once again, to a major upheaval. The majority of voters ignored the naysayers, and the naysayers are chomping at the bit waiting to gloat at Britain's collapse. A collapse that isn't coming.

The June 23 vote took many investors and chief executives by surprise, triggering the deepest political and financial turmoil in Britain since World War Two and the biggest ever one-day fall in sterling against the dollar.

On the day of the vote, sterling traded above $1.50 but is now trading below $1.23 and fell below $1.15 at one point in October.

While opponents of leaving the EU had warned that the United Kingdom’s economy would stall and investment stop if voters opted to exit, the data since the Brexit vote has shown the economy was resilient.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

I am sure Yoshitune could have a laugh at the myriad examples of that if he learnt to read the wider picture instead of boiling his argument down to whatever 'Aunt Sally' would suit his argument (can't you come up with something more adult than that lad? Lots of people may well be laughing all the way to the bank....so what?

You've missed my point. Rupert Murdoch, through his ownership of a newspaper that has spent the last two decades campaigning for Brexit, is one of the major architects of Brexit. The man isn't British and doesn't give a hoot about Britain or sovereignty or any of the other patriotic-but-empty tosh The Sun spews out; he wanted Brexit so he could a) make more money and b) get away with more in the UK and make himself more powerful to c) make more money. The man is well and truly laughing all the way to the bank, at the UK's expense. Hardly the stuff of "taking back control" or "putting the 'great' back into Britain", etc etc

Sneering at people making money now are we?

Sneering? You what? There's a lot of sneering going on right now alright, as well as plenty of snarling and gnashing, and it's being aimed at the "liberal metropolitan elite", whatever the hell that is even supposed to mean. Meanwhile, the actual scumbag elite which has been shafting the little man the whole time - an elite of which Rupert Murdoch is very much representative - is now just going to do it harder than ever before.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

The UK version of fukubukuro, buy a British company for half of its value. Really smart.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

"How's that promise on side of the bus going?"

Brexit isn't happening yet and wont for a while yet. So your comment is a few years premature and thus unwarranted.

It wasn't a "promise" by any reasonable person's definition ("Let's spend more on...."), but anyway, it's a budgetary issue, so can you explain why the govt in about 3 years time would find it impossible to allocate more funds for NHS, or in any other area it sees fit?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

The issue with the bus, Jeff, as I'm sure you're already well aware, was the mendacious figure quoted upon it.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Yoshitsune, Yes, that was one, but not the main issue. (actual amount 250 instead of 350 mil., since the rebate Thatcher negotiated wasn't included.)

The other, bigger part of furor was about the supposed "promise," as mentioned by the poster, and supposed "backpedalling."

A news clip I saw, which went viral, showed a tv presenter telling Farage that UKIP made the "promise" in an advert (the presenter was lying). NF responded that no such advert was made (he was telling the truth). And so, I want to know why a UK govt 2 or 3 years hence is going to be totally unable to allocate more money to the NHS. Hello?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

actual amount 250 instead of 350 mil

Not sure where you get 250m from; the figure calculated by the BBC is 160m.

I want to know why a UK govt 2 or 3 years hence is going to be totally unable to allocate more money to the NHS

Well, if Brexit leads to a roaring economy then they would be able to; but if Brexit leads to economic stagnation or worse then they won't be able to, regardless of the figure on the bus.

Furthermore the UK govt 2 or 3 years hence is going to be the Tories; whatever that bus said and whatever mendacity the Tories came up with during the campaign, the Tories are licking their chops at the prospect of privatisating the NHS.

What Ukip think about the NHS has very little relevance as things stand.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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