Manhattan Strip Clubs: Hamish McRae A sweet deal – or a takeover that is hard to swallow?
I find those figures stunning – and all the more stunning because hardly anyone seems to know them. (If you are interested, this is all in the Balance of Payments “Pink Book” published each summer by the Office of National Statistics.) We think of Britain as being the land where everything is for sale and being snapped up by foreigners but actually we earn a huge surplus on our investments abroad. We would be real trouble if we did not have them.
Nevertheless there are some troubling issues raised by the Cadbury tale. One is why families that have built up businesses feel the need to sell them. It is all very well for a scion of the Cadbury family to rage against the “asset-strippers” taking the business over. But the Cadbury family lost control years ago. That happens to many family businesses here, whereas in Germany for example, middle-sized family businesses carry on for generations.
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