Howard, Grumpy Pa and Alistair,
We cannot complain about foreign ownership of UK assets when UK companies have massive overseas earnings from their overseas investments, earnings which are taxed in the UK. I believe about 40% of the UK Corporation Tax paid is on foreign earnings.
Don't disagree with what you say John.
I watch the foreign ownership of UK business with concern because the thing you do export is the decision making process which may often contain an unacknowledged bias. I do not mean this in a rude way in this example, actually I quite admire this example. Look at the car world, VW retaining manufacturing in Germany, where will they close plants? How does the strong German ownership (banks) a strong workforce council, good cultural alignment and the strength of the brand adjust a given decision? However it means external factories will be put at the front of the firing queue in tough times. Given we have a number of car transplants (Toyota, Nissan, where did Honda go?) it becomes a risk? (sorry that was written in a few separate sessions so may be messy)
Just as well the boys making cars up north are good at what they do!
I have no idea what we still own abroad and how this stands.
This link identifies the value by country of UK investments abroad from 1987. Whilst it doesn't identify the industries concerned it is quite diverse and far ranging eg we have ownership of some US energy and water companies.
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-kingdom/direct-investment-abroadThere was a study many many years ago which looked at the decision making in UK companies owned by overseas entities. Whilst the world may have moved on since, in general it found that policy direction and particularly regarding moving work abroad was taken by British born managers, and often not in response to overseas pressure, but it was convenient to blame overseas ownership.
Globalisation becomes more difficult when heavy import duties are placed on imported goods eg cars imported into China, US . EU which then leads to oversea manufacturers setting up manufacturing as VW has in the US and China, removing production from Germany which eventually undermines German domestic production leading to closures, thru reducing economies of scale.. VW knew this would eventually happen when it created overseas manufacturing diverting German domestic production overseas.
Toyota, Nissan Honda only set up in the UK because it gave access to the EU market and lower iif any tariffs and removed any quota's when we were a member.
So foreign ownership may not unduly influence where business activity take place, but more the size of and import restrictions of the larger target markets. Cars are still the largest overseas export from the UK.
.
