It could be argued that foreign investments / takeovers have done well, Jaguar & Bentley for example. But for each success story there is another where things are not so great. If times get tough why should we expect any foreign owned business to show any empathy towards their UK employees. If they have to cut jobs they are far more likely to shed them outside their home market, unless a government steps in with inducements & subsidies

We are seeing a huge rise in UK nationalism with strong calls for the UK to leave Europe and become more "protectionist" over its borders. Yet at the same time we seem happy to allow any "johnnie foreigner" to buy our businesses.

Often the businesses being bought are in receipt of government subsidies that were intended to make that firm a “BRITISH” success. Subsidies are paid to increase the businesses productivity and turnover. In return securing more Jobs. Ultimately it would be hoped that their increased profitability and production would mean bigger tax payments would offset the initial government investment. It seems like UK taxpayers money bolsters a company to the point where someone can come along, buy the business, its brands, intellectual property and then stripp off other assets, and selling those on too. Hardly a good deal for the UK tax payer.

How can we possibly spout rhetoric of Britain Vs. the world on one hand whilst seemingly selling out with the other?

Britain is seen, by many, as being the easiest and most open market in the world for business takeovers. We have indeed seen many of the UK's biggest firms being taken over by foreign firms. We may have, some, jobs remaining but the intellectual rights, property & profits all feed into to the parent company, the stock market where they are listed. Their tax revenues? Paid into the coffers of their listed country. It is extremely rare, if ever, that the UK government blocks any foreign takeover. A quick look at our European neighbours though reveals that they have been "Significantly" more protectionist than us. They regularly claim that keeping ownership of a company within the host country is in the national interest of the nation.

Thoughts?

I am in agreement with our European neighbours Bob.

The UK in general seem happy to sell no matter what.

The UK bosses/government need to be stronger and less selfish. Perhaps they are thinking short term or it i will line my own pocket and bugger everyone else.

The only thing that is a bit of comfort is that the UK allways survives somehow!

That's because they are 2 different viewpoints from different sources. The Governments that have been in power have allowed the selling of many UK business, whilst it's UKIP and it's supporters who have played a large part in the rise in nationalism.

We should leave the EU (we can't leave Europe, it's the continent we're geographically part of), for many reasons, such as the EU directives which disallow us the ability to decide who we trade with, which hinders business. The best way to do business is via the Commonwealth where agreements between countries are mainly done bilaterally. A Conservative MP recently completed a study on the economic pros & cons. It was carried out with a top economist who works for a multi-national bank. The study concludes that at worse we would neither gain or lose by leaving the EU and at best we would be a lot better off because business would be a lot easier without the added taxes and red tape.

I personally think this is more important than who actually owns the companies.

Ok this was a thread about UK businesses being bought up by foreign owners, but we are back discussing the EU.

It surely can't be EEC / UK rules that allow British business' to be cherry picked because, as stated earlier, other EU countries have made it more difficult for their businesses to be taken.

But as EU is back on the table......

Every anti EU proponent suggests that "Pointless" EU legislation and red tape need to be stripped to enable UK business to thrive. If I look at UK & EU rules from the perspective of a big business owner I think I could identify which legislation & directives I would probably like to see the back of. Could someone who understands all the Anti EU sound bite, and is perhaps even prepared to vote to try and bring it about, please give me their thoughts. I would like to know what legislation, exactly, they feel the Nationalist parties are talking about removing. I've not looked too hard but I have failed to see any of them offer "SPECIFIC" items that they would remove.

Maybe I'm being picky but I consider that if we are at the point of accepting and voting for someone we should know exactly what elements it is he / they wish to remove.

I presume this is as a result of the Pfizer/Astra Zeneca issue?

It doesn't matter what Pfizer promise to do or not, as soon as they get their hands on the prize they'll do what they want with it, whatever suits them best in both market and tax terms.
That's exactly what happened with Kraft's takeover of Cadbury who I believe are now headquartered in Luxembourg

However, from the tax point of view there's already nothing stopping a UK firm basing itself overseas and avoiding a shedload of tax - Vodafone for example - so assuming this is the case already the only taxation issue would be if the workforce were to reduce dramatically thus removing a lot of PAYE/NIC together with increasing the benefits bill even more.

I would prefer for more UK firms to be owned within the UK but we'd need a list of major companies and who actually owns them first.

Once a company is publically traded on a stock exchange it's nonsense to talk of it having any sort of nationality. It is owned by the shareholders who, most likely, come from all four corners of the world.

They'll invest or make cuts wherever makes them the most money, because that's what the shareholders want and those shareholders often aren't even individuals, but other companies, pension funds, etc.

If a German company, say BMW, buys a British company, Rolls-Royce, then what's really changed? Is RR still British? IS BMW German? What does yellow smell like? The questions aren't just irrelevant, they're actually meaningless.

if a 'foreign' company looks set to take over a 'British' company then the last thing the government should do is get involved. Buying shares which are over-priced because of take-over potential to stop the take-over happening just means that you're using tax-payer money to buy shares which are almost certain to drop in price.

The government should protect British jobs by ensuring that it's appropriately difficult to dispense with British workers if it turns a quick profit. That's something that the EU is strong on and which UKIP would *love* to get rid of, because you can be sure they're dead against all of that lefty nonsense which hurts their business interests.

Following pure capitalist principles one would have to agree. Once any business is made public it is open season for it to be swallowed up by the market / competitors.

The problem arises when Government steps in to assist an ailing "Public Company" in the guise of national Interest. Once tax payers money has been used to give any business any form of preferential treatment, in say the form of Tax breaks or subsidies, then the tax payer, via their Government, should have some degree of expected pay back?