Globalisation: Does foreign ownership matter? - Full Transcript of Albert Ellis's Speech
Globalisation: Does foreign ownership matter?
Frankly, what I have read in the media and heard so far I find all too depressing. The debate too often centres on nationalistic and xenophobic rhetoric…and misses the point! A famous President elect said in the run up to the 2002 US election "… its the economy stupid"
There may be a case for saying that shareholders are rushing to cash in and end up selling UK companies too cheaply to overseas buyers….but that is another topic for another day. The issue we need to focus on is this. Quite simply, the UK has always had too little home-grown business talent and commercial leadership. The big issue is not just Capital its about Talent.
The Americans filled the gap and have turned our Financial Services companies into the world beating sector that it is today. The Japanese and Germans have helped us build cars again and even Minis got a BMW badge. (For those of you not as well travelled as the honourable John Prescott that does not stand for Birmingham Motor Works). We await the white knights for Coal and Nuclear….. "Peut-être la France peut aider ?" (Perhaps, France can help?)
In an age of globalisation and global benchmarking of talent, we must keep up. Some observers forecast that in just 15 years, therell be more Russians running FTSE-100 companies than Britons!!! Dont laugh the highest paid CEO of a Footsie 100 company last year was not Lord Brown or Fred Goodwin. It was Mick Davies of Xstrata to the tune of £11m. Oh, and by the way, Davies is a highly skilled professional migrant.
Why whats going on?
Firstly, we dont educate our children in the basics at school. Our own Richard Lambert has warned that much of the current publicly-funded skills infrastructure is failing employers. The Treasury commissioned Lord Leitch to report on the skills crisis in the UK, this is to be published in a few weeks.
Secondly, our graduates are leaving university with irrelevant degrees
Over 84% of Vietnamese students leave University with either a Science or Maths degree. Meanwhile its only 15% in the UK and the trends are more worrying for example Newcastle University recently cancelled its Physics degree course through lack of interest!
Thirdly, the post-graduate interest in education seems about getting a piece of paper and having fun. The business school culture is too theoretical and not results focused enough. So, if you dont like Johnny Foreigner coming over here and taking over….then, there’s a simple but not immediate answer. We need to get serious about producing a qualified, experienced business leadership.
In the meantime, the good news is that the UK is attracting great professional and managerial talent from around the world. As new Harvey Nash/CEBR research reveals, this highly skilled migrant talent in 2005 accounted for an additional 5% of GDP…thats nearly £55 billion! And this is not Polish plumbers or Bulgarian waiters….it’s £55 billion of value generated by highly skilled professional migrant talent.
We have one of the best legal frameworks in the world. It looks after important issues such as intellectual property rights, data protection and so on. We have highly developed corporate governance norms, and on the whole I believe we have struck the right balance between employees, employers and competitiveness. I also thank God for our highly aggressive free press!
Richard Lambert said London was clearly far behind New York 30 years ago. I can second that. I first came to visit the UK in 1977 when my father, the most British ex pats I have even known, proudly showed me around the country of his birth. It was a shame it was in the midst of the Winter of Discontent. I never returned until 1993. However, after 14 years I cannot see myself living anywhere else.
I believe we should welcome the fact that foreign ownership is helping to close the skills gap that exists in the UK today and lets start as a country to put the foundation in place to grow our own talent in the future.
And please keep our taxation policy and regulatory regime up to the job Mr Brown………….or should that be Mr Cameron?
