A thought related to the Daimler-Chrysler merger thread:
We hear all the time about European multinationals acquiring or merging (as senior partner) with major American firms, but how prevalent is the contrary? Does Europe (hardly a monolith, I realize) throw up more barriers than do we? Are their markets and laws re: mergers and acquisitions as relaxed?
Not all that uncommon at all - e.g. Ford now own Jaguar cars.
Some continental European countries such as Germany are not happy with the idea of hostile take-overs as are common in the US & UK though.
Happens alla time. In fact, I would hazard a guess that there is far more purchase of European firms by U.S. firms than the other way around.
Most such acquisitions are, of course, a large firm buying up a small one. Acquisitions of one giant company by another, like Daimler-Chrysler or Pharmacia-Upjohn, are rarer, and therefore attract more attention in the media.
In Germany, Holland, and France there are particular problems with hostile takeovers.
The share system of many if not most large companies means that voting power is concentrated into a minority of shares, a simple share majority is not going to be enough in such takeovers.
The UK is as wide open as the US, many companies cannot claim to be of a particular nationality, being able to operate and move captital and production across many countries.
I would think Coldy has a good overall view of this.
As Casdave said, the UK is fairly wide open and a number of UK utilities (for example) are owned by US corporates, as are most of the car marques. In Germany the situation is somewhat different. Many of the firms are ‘Mittelstand’ companies built up after the war; they form the backbone of the economy and many are family owned at least in part, so a take over has to appeal to the majority shareholders, ie the family. Away from that, because of the way corporates, banks and insurers had to support each other after the war there exist many dense cross-shareholding which are quite dificult to see through and make takeovers very difficult. For instantance, Bank A may own a blocking stake in Bank B, and Bank B does the same with Bank A. Thus, anybody wanting to buy one effectively has to have the agreement of the other.
So, to cut a long story short, it isn’t that there are greater regulatory hurdles to a takeover in the more ‘socialist’ European economies, but the cross shareholdings mean that it is more difficult to get people on board. Recently a merger of two steel companies was planned which would have meant the loss of some jobs. The steelworkers unions picketed Deutsche Bank who then withdrew financing, and the deal collapsed.
It might be different in France though.