60 roundtable: investment ... continued from previous page
with the SMEs providing a great supply chain and often targets for acquisition by the larger corporates. We have a talented labour pool and a phenomenal professional infrastructure including lawyers, accountants and other professionals – all of whom are fundamental to success. I do agree with Paul that this is not the time to be complacent.
“Anyone who thinks that they can merely sit back and enjoy the next 30 years of Thames Valley success would be sorely disappointed.”
With the UK becoming viewed as something of a safe haven for certain European businesses, Devall asked Britton if enough was being done to encourage them.
Britton admitted that from some emerging markets the UK was “behind the curve” in relation to the pro-activity of other European countries. Germany, for example, had been targeting Chinese investment for five to six years. But, the UK was catching up, supported by business led initiatives such as LinktoChina and its present attributes – political and financial stability, non-euro currency, favourable taxation – were still attracting significant Chinese investment, such as Huawei in Reading and Hytera in Slough.
While mentioning the need to resolve immigration issues for important foreign employees, Britton added: “If UK plc gets it right and government is pro-active globally, then by the nature of the Thames Valley offer we will continue to do well.”
Roger Gregory
Lewis revealed that Citroen had located at Slough Trading Estate in 1926, Mars in 1930. “Inward investment is nothing new. But, how we hang on to such companies is important, because that’s where we could get complacent.”
A friendlier, safer place to invest
HSBC’s Andy Brattesani highlighted a fresh flow of international investment activity to the Thames Valley, some driven by the need for a safe haven.
“In the last six months we have seen Russian, French and American companies setting up UK accounts with us, but we have also seen a lot of our UK companies opening up abroad too."
Andrew Peddie noted that in the past year Pitmans had seen an increased flow of legal work involving inbound investment – “and interestingly eclectic as to where it is coming from.”
Richard Devall mentioned increased Chinese interest. Also, Egyptian ultra high-net-worth individuals wishing to establish UK business investments beyond their troubled homeland. “One Egyptian company is actually aiming to move its entire business to the UK.”
Peddie added that the banking crisis in Cyprus had also generated work for Pitmans with Russian and Cypriot businesses. Equally, the tax situation in France was bringing work to the UK. “It’s quite interesting how rapidly businesses will consider upping sticks and setting up elsewhere.”
www.businessmag.co.uk
Brattesani mentioned two UK engineering companies investing in new machinery in order to do more of their manufacturing in-house. Previously, they had sent such work to China, but with minimum wage
policies and Far Eastern workforces becoming more aspirational, it was becoming more cost- effective to keep the work in the UK.
Level playing fields and
low countries Tony Warwick highlighted the low countries as a potential threat to the Thames Valley, having seen its success and aiming to mirror it. “In Belgium, for example they can set all their national resource at just selling Belgium, whereas we in the Thames Valley have rivals even within Britain. So there is a certain tension before we get to a competitive level playing field.
“Belgium also has a very persuasive offer if you need to stock and distribute product in Europe. The Belgian workforce, for example, has very good command of European languages.
“In terms of British companies and their choice of location, I think the Thames Valley is speaking quite eloquently to the nation’s businesses and has less challenges within the UK. I may be speaking heresy, but I think the biggest UK rival to the Thames Valley is the M3 business corridor, west of Gatwick, with several major companies that could make a case for their economic location.
Warwick stressed the need to recognise that in the big picture “there are basically two flavours of inward investors,
• those who invest for access to the UK market
• those who invest in the UK for access to broader markets.
“They behave significantly differently. The first is an easier sell for us, but we have to be careful not to be too locally focused for the international market investors. It’s not just about routes to London, we need a richer basket of offerings, need to provide advantages and benefits of a wider nature, travel via Southampton Airport for example.
“From a national economic point of view, an inward investor who is going to export from the UK is far more important than an inward home-market investor who will employ people but essentially will just import things.
“Long-term inward investors don’t behave like inward investors at all, They behave like established indigenous British companies, and they will have a tendency to want to move house just because that’s what people do as they grow. It’s important to try to keep them here, of course, but they don’t teach us a lot about fresh investors.”
How do we build the Thames Valley brand
abroad? Britton: “You can spend an inordinate amount of money promoting your offer in broad terms abroad, whereas the most powerful message is the one that gets through to the company decision-makers, and their peers with whom they talk. The aim should be to get such people to share conversations pointing out that moving to the UK doesn’t have to mean locating in London.
Andrew Peddie
“Compared with areas such as Bristol or Manchester, the Thames Valley has all the trumps, but the UK is not where the ultimate competition lies.”
“It is all about leveraging the ‘who’s already here message’, which is a very powerful advantage that we have in the Thames Valley.
“There is a huge appetite amongst businesses in the Thames Valley to shout about the good things that the region has to offer, both among
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – MAY 2013
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68