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Cadbury, Jaguar Land Rover and Asda are among the big UK names owned by foreign companies. But beyond the high-profile cases, just how prevalent is foreign ownership of UK businesses, and what do they contribute to the economy?
The Office for National Statistics has published some analysis of foreign-owned companies outside the financial sector, which account for around two-thirds of the UK economy.
Here are the five key points made by the ONS.
Just 1% of companies are foreign-owned, but contribute 29% of UK gross value added
The ONS says the apparent discrepancy might be partly explained by the size of the companies and the sectors they tend to operate in. Gross value added measures the income generated by individual businesses minus the costs of goods and services used to create the income.
Number of foreign businesses has fallen but their economic contribution has increased
The number of foreign owned businesses decreased by 3% between 2009 and 2012, but their contribution to UK gross value added increased by 19%. This can be explained by a 10% drop in the number of micro-sized businesses – those employing fewer than 10 people – whereas there was actually an increase in the number of small, medium and large foreign-owned businesses which are likely to contribute more to the economy.
Fewer micro-sized businesses in foreign than UK ownership
The ONS says 42% of foreign-owned companies had fewer than 10 employees in 2012, compared with 89% of UK owned businesses. Foreign-owned companies were more likely to be large, with 10% employing at least 250 people compared with 0.3% of UK-owned businesses.
Construction businesses are more likely to be UK-owned
Just 4% of foreign-owned companies were in the UK construction sector in 2012, compared with 13% of UK-owned. This might be related to the fact that there tends to be more micro-sized business in construction than in other sectors, and foreign-owned UK businesses tend to be larger. However, there are more UK production and distribution companies in foreign ownership than in UK ownership.
US accounted for a quarter of UK companies in foreign ownership in 2012
The US, Germany and the Netherlands were the three countries with the most UK businesses in 2012. But in terms of continents, the majority (54%) of foreign-owned businesses were owned from within Europe, with around a third (33%) owned from within North and South America.
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