Another one goes…

misskool

if we're doing anecdotals, bf of a friend of a friend started a new concept eating place this year in zone 1 london.

it's doing well and they are breaking even (in 7 months), and have big plans for their eatery. So not all business is not going down the pan. Lots of savvy young entrepreneurs coming up. More friends cooking up business plans.

ruggedtoast

I'm glad their business is doing well, but I'm not sure that another concept eatery in Central London is what we're lacking.

At least they can't outsource the waiting staff to Thailand though, I guess thats something.

zygurat789

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I'm glad their business is doing well, but I'm not sure that another concept eatery in Central London is what we're lacking.

At least they can't outsource the waiting staff to Thailand though, I guess thats something.

Have you eaten out in London - virtually everry waiter is outsourced.

zygurat789

CLAPTON wrote: »

I don't know whether or not that a fact but if it were so it was because british investors (both individuals and institutional) chose to sell originally and/ or chose not to re-buy.

What would you like to happen: maybe a govenrment department buying shares on behalf of us all because british companies are too stupid to spot a bargain?

There's no money to buy anything because it's all been used to buy houses. What we have to do is get people to invest in industry & commerce to enable our companies to compete.

Harry_Powell

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Thats all very well but as the chances of them reinvesting in the UK are comparatively small, and once the jobs from the bought out company are gone they are gone, I dont see how this helps our country.

I know that Japanese companies are not as susceptible to predatory foreign takeovers (I used to live there) as British ones. And anyyone who wants to buy a Japanese company and put Japanese people out of work will have an uphill struggle.

It may be that this is the model towards prosperity and the current problems are due to us not having sold enough businesses yet, and maybe we havent made enough people unemployed to really see the full benefit.

I just dont totally get the upside.

Isn't the main reason that the UK is so successful at attracting business from overseas companies is the fact that we have more flexible employee laws?

CLAPTON

zygurat789 wrote: »

There's no money to buy anything because it's all been used to buy houses. What we have to do is get people to invest in industry & commerce to enable our companies to compete.

It's unclear whether we have had a shortage of investment capital except of course over the last two exceptional years.

The main investors in this country are pension funds and foreigners. We brits don't tend to invest directly in the stock market and certainly not in start up situations
Do you?

zygurat789

CLAPTON wrote: »

It's unclear whether we have had a shortage of investment capital except of course over the last two exceptional years.

When loadsamoney was being "invested" in houses pushing the prices up to unsustainable levels

The main investors in this country are pension funds and foreigners. We brits don't tend to invest directly in the stock market and certainly not in start up situations
Do you?

There are plenty of other funds other than pension funds as well, see the financial pages of a broadsheet.
And no I don't directly because Im cautious by nature, I let the fund managers do it for me and I have never bought a houise, other than to relocate.

And you?

Thrugelmir

Harry_Powell wrote: »

Isn't the main reason that the UK is so successful at attracting business from overseas companies is the fact that we have more flexible employee laws?

For the Americans its because we speak English....

zygurat789

Harry_Powell wrote: »

Isn't the main reason that the UK is so successful at attracting business from overseas companies is the fact that we have more flexible employee laws?

I thought the point was that they were carpetbagging

ruggedtoast

Personally I think its important that we have national champions for things like, patriotism, morale, and at least some kind of sense that British peoples lives and livelihoods are more, or at least as, important as the balance sheet of some hedge fund listed on the NYSE.

It's extremely unfair that the workers who built Cadbury into one of the few remaining successful global British brands, have just been bought out by a near bankrupt American company, who geared through a state owned British bank, and that many of them will now almost certainly be out of work.

People need things to aspire to and look forward to, and there really isn't much in the UK. The ethos really seems to be, work harder and longer hours than anywhere else in Europe, for the fewest holidays and the lowest quality of life. Then you might be afford to drive a French car, install a Japanese entertainment system, finance a house purchase from an American bank, and go shopping in a department store owned by Iceland while you ponder you're holiday in Spain.

Then if you're lucky the Americans will come over, buy your company and put you out of work.

Oh news just in, another one of my pals company has just been taken over and, guess where the job losses are all coming from.

Sigh - guess this is Britain.

http://www.efinancialnews.com/homepage/content/530901