Some party political interests piled in to the recent Pfizer/AstraZeneca corporate tussle and this has made Will Mooney, Carter Jonas partner and head of its commercial agency and professional services in the eastern region, think about how potent a mix international business and national politics can be.
In the weeks which preceded Pfizer’s accelerated courting of AstraZeneca – which, appears, for the time being, to have peaked in mid-May with its delcined offer to AZ shareholders of £55 per share - there were almost as many reviews of the translation of a 2013 book by a radical French economist being undertaken by economic and financial journalists as those of their literary and cultural commentator peers.
The book was “Capital in the 21 Century” by Thomas Piketty and it was even reviewed in the Daily Telegraph by the immediate-past governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King. While Lord King appeared not view the book as one of those works which changes the way we should look at the world, it pricked his interest enough for him to argue a different viewpoint to that of Monsieur Piketty.
The guiding premise of the book - not that I have read it, you understand – appears to be that, in this century, capitalism works in presumption in favour of inherited wealth over earned wealth because capital’s rate of return outstrips that of growth.
It’s a view. And not one a mere property agent is equipped to examine further.
My comment is only the coincidence of the timing of the book’s publicity and what might well play out as one of the biggest corporate capitalist battles of this decade. National politicians were struggling to keep up with a bigger battle than they could possibly control when it came to the AZ/Pfizer business. They knew it and most of us interested in the adventure knew it too. Yet the politicians couldn’t resist feeling they had to make some kind of pronouncement on it and take a position. It wasn’t edifying to see them operate their analogue arguments in this digital age.
In knowing that they couldn’t sanction whatever outcome there was going to be to Pfizer’s approach to AstraZeneca – save changing a tax regime which gives such R&D business interests a favourable home in UK PLC – the national body politic held court as the CEOs of both companies were questioned by a Westminster parliamentary committee for two days in a week which must have been one of the busiest in those two CEOs’ executive lives.
Those whose interests it suited likened the AstraZeneca situation to that of the recent sell-off of the Royal Mail and talked, wistfully, in terms of the selling off the nation’s crown jewels.
AstraZeneca and its work is one of the jewels in the corporate crown of the UK scene but it’s not a nationalised industry and it’s not ours to sell and never has been. Although in the mists of corporate time, there was a connection with the once mighty UK chemical institution ICI before ICI Zeneca was formed as part of a de-merger in the mid 1990. But it was never a state-owned operation. The Astra was put into Zeneca in 1999 as the result of a merger with Swedish company Astra AB and it then set off on a programme of acquisitions of its own which is still current.
The point is, in the 21st Century, fluffy and patriotic feelings about PLC companies are irrelevant. Whether Anglo-Swedish or American in origin, international companies are corporate citizens of the world and can, and will, choose to domicile themselves in whichever location suits them and their shareholders’ interests best at any one point in time.
To attract the best of business it seems, the best any single nation’s politicians can do is create an environment and circumstances in which as many of these companies as possible feel welcomed enough to locate and recruit and certainly not adopt a political posture which might put-off such companies in future.
In the weeks which preceded Pfizer’s accelerated courting of AstraZeneca – which, appears, for the time being, to have peaked in mid-May with its delcined offer to AZ shareholders of £55 per share - there were almost as many reviews of the translation of a 2013 book by a radical French economist being undertaken by economic and financial journalists as those of their literary and cultural commentator peers.
The book was “Capital in the 21 Century” by Thomas Piketty and it was even reviewed in the Daily Telegraph by the immediate-past governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King. While Lord King appeared not view the book as one of those works which changes the way we should look at the world, it pricked his interest enough for him to argue a different viewpoint to that of Monsieur Piketty.
The guiding premise of the book - not that I have read it, you understand – appears to be that, in this century, capitalism works in presumption in favour of inherited wealth over earned wealth because capital’s rate of return outstrips that of growth.
It’s a view. And not one a mere property agent is equipped to examine further.
My comment is only the coincidence of the timing of the book’s publicity and what might well play out as one of the biggest corporate capitalist battles of this decade. National politicians were struggling to keep up with a bigger battle than they could possibly control when it came to the AZ/Pfizer business. They knew it and most of us interested in the adventure knew it too. Yet the politicians couldn’t resist feeling they had to make some kind of pronouncement on it and take a position. It wasn’t edifying to see them operate their analogue arguments in this digital age.
In knowing that they couldn’t sanction whatever outcome there was going to be to Pfizer’s approach to AstraZeneca – save changing a tax regime which gives such R&D business interests a favourable home in UK PLC – the national body politic held court as the CEOs of both companies were questioned by a Westminster parliamentary committee for two days in a week which must have been one of the busiest in those two CEOs’ executive lives.
Those whose interests it suited likened the AstraZeneca situation to that of the recent sell-off of the Royal Mail and talked, wistfully, in terms of the selling off the nation’s crown jewels.
AstraZeneca and its work is one of the jewels in the corporate crown of the UK scene but it’s not a nationalised industry and it’s not ours to sell and never has been. Although in the mists of corporate time, there was a connection with the once mighty UK chemical institution ICI before ICI Zeneca was formed as part of a de-merger in the mid 1990. But it was never a state-owned operation. The Astra was put into Zeneca in 1999 as the result of a merger with Swedish company Astra AB and it then set off on a programme of acquisitions of its own which is still current.
The point is, in the 21st Century, fluffy and patriotic feelings about PLC companies are irrelevant. Whether Anglo-Swedish or American in origin, international companies are corporate citizens of the world and can, and will, choose to domicile themselves in whichever location suits them and their shareholders’ interests best at any one point in time.
To attract the best of business it seems, the best any single nation’s politicians can do is create an environment and circumstances in which as many of these companies as possible feel welcomed enough to locate and recruit and certainly not adopt a political posture which might put-off such companies in future.
Will Mooney MRICS
Partner
Commercial, Cambridge
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