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Your Money > Investing Comment Articles > The Empire strikes...
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By Richard J Hunter, Hargreaves Lansdown
Over the last year or so, O2 have been bought by Telefonica, BAA by Ferrovial, P&O were snapped This is quite apart from the current vogue of foreign owners purchasing UK football clubs, where over recent times the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, Aston Villa and West Ham all find themselves with foreign owners. Such is the open and transparent nature of the UK market, this is something which is perfectly allowable, unlike many other global markets where protectionism often prevails, even if on occasion the local government would deny that this is the case. Furthermore, the purists would argue that the ownership of the company is rather less important than how the company is run and its continued success, and indeed that the open nature of the London market is one of the reasons which attracts much of the top talent and investment into the City, which in turn benefits the wider UK economy. In any event, those companies which seek a listing in the first place do so with their eyes open, knowing that along with a public quotation comes the inevitable move into the firing line of a potential bidder from the UK or anywhere else. There has been the additional benefit to shareholders of unlocking value. BAA was moving along steadily at around 600p per share before eventually being taken out at over 900p. Similarly, P&O saw its share price more than double in a short space of time as the predators circled. However, this is not just one-way traffic. According to a recent report by Thomson Financial, the gap between predator and prey may be shortening for UK plc. In the first three months of 2007, British companies with a combined value of nearly £39 billion were acquired by UK and foreign buyers, unchanged from the same period last year. At the same time, acquisitions of overseas companies totalled some £33 billion, which represented an increase of 174% from the previous year. The likes of Vodafone, Shire, Meggitt and Smith & Nephew were all busy on the acquisition trail. Meanwhile, at the time of writing, there are reportedly similar moves afoot with the planned acquisition of Altadis of Spain by Imperial Tobacco and ongoing talks between Barclays and ABN Amro of Holland. Quite apart from these giants, FTSE100 mining stock Xstrata and oil major Royal Dutch Shell have been acquiring foreign companies. Apart from all this activity, these figures do not include the well publicised moves from the private equity fraternity. Here, the first three months of 2007 saw deals valued at nearly £16 billion, which represented the second busiest quarter on record to the first quarter of 2006, when the figure reported was £21 billion. Companies who are currently in this mix include the likes of Sainsbury and Alliance Boots. Whatever the nature of the approach, M&A activity has been a healthy driver for global markets over the last couple of years. Indeed, following the recent volatility in the markets, what appears to be a relative return to investor confidence and appetite to risk may well have been helped along by the resurgence of bid speculation and activity. Furthermore, there are a number of sectors at present which, for various reasons, are ripe for consolidation. The amount of surplus capital on many companies' balance sheets is responsible for the current wave of M&A activity, that is if the excess cash is not returned to shareholders either in the form of dividends or a share buyback programme. In any event, such activity underpins both market prices and market confidence, and so from an investment perspective, whether the UK is a net buyer or a net seller is of rather less interest and importance than whether the activity can continue. Useful links: |
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