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That's a difficult and slippery slope type problem. If the Europeans stop the US from acquiring companies there, the US ends up doing the same to European compa

That's a difficult and slippery slope type problem. If the Europeans stop the US from acquiring companies there, the US ends up doing the same to European companies trying to acquire US assets. We let Germany buy one of the most important companies on the planet in Monsanto. I consider Monsanto to be a national security level company, we should have never let it go. Seed & AG tech is critical for the coming century and Monsanto is one of the very few global giants. For a long time we've been allowing European pharma giants to catch up in biotech by acquiring several of our important biotech companies, as with Genentech, Genzyme, Baxalta, MedImmune, Bioverativ and so on. We let Germany's Merck buy up Sigma-Aldrich. We let our medtech juggernaut, Medtronic, rebase to Ireland, no doubt taking important IP and jobs with it over time. When I watch important US companies like Genzyme get consumed by a European company, I fully understand how the Europeans feel about ARM etc.

coliveira 6y ago
That's not even comparable. The reason pharma companies relocate is to have access to tax havens that in the past were available only to oil and finance industries. They remain still American companies in essence. Even tech companies like Apple and Google have used European countries as a tax haven scheme.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  Not to tax havens but to regulatory bodies as well.
labcomputer 6y ago
I don't think OP's point was that Europe should prevent US companies from acquiring European tech firms via, e.g., legislation. Rather, that Europeans should place more value on those companies--and either: for competing European firms to outbid US acquisition attempts; or for the owners to not sell them when the offers are too low. One of the major challenges is "synergies" (gak!). Acquiring, say, ARM adds much more value to a company like Apple or nVidia than it does to SAP or Spotify. There's no way around the fact that right now American tech companies can afford to outbid European ones for ARM because ARM adds more value to American companies.
michaelcampbell 6y ago
> If the Europeans stop the US from acquiring companies there, You seem to imply here that the US acquired this company against the will of the seller, which I don't think the parent thread was getting at (nor is true, as far as I know).
baybal2 6y ago
> We let Germany buy one of the most important companies on the planet in Monsanto. I consider Monsanto to be a national security level company, we should have never let it go. Seed & AG tech is critical for the coming century and Monsanto is one of the very few global giants. Many things around have "global importance," and it is long past the time for any modern, globalised economy to undo that. If China wanted to f__k up the West economically on the supply chain side, they have far, far, far more options to do so than the other way around, and this is not limited by companies on the extremes of labour intensity scale. They are plenty of both low, and high tech companies which are one and only in the world in China. And so can many countries with industrial economies, not event necessarily large one. Take Thailand for example, and how they gave a fright of a lifetime to Internet companies with a single phrase "It may take at least a few years before the world can make new hard drives." Or Taiwan, a Microchip embargo today from them may well be a worse thing than an oil embargo of 1970s to a modern economy. Japan, and Korea both have a deadgrip on high material science products, and not so high as well. Both have giants which control chemicals used in 90%+ of all synthetic fabrics. Life without synthetic fabrics today will not be fun to anybody. India has a generic drugs supremacy, and is relied upon by much of the world other than the West for just any drugs. The one and only in the world top tier substrate plant went up in flames in China week ago. All major chip vendors been using their substrate for the package for a few years. If you see a chip with HBM memory, or any model CPU, it's their substrate which is used. On the other end of high techness scale, China has 90%+ of global market for such essential industrial goods as screws, nuts, and bolts. Neither of these examples avail to being easily substituted, and I can come with many more.

coliveira 6y ago

That's not even comparable. The reason pharma companies relocate is to have access to tax havens that in the past were available only to oil and finance industries. They remain still American companies in essence. Even tech companies like Apple and Google have used European countries as a tax haven scheme.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
Not to tax havens but to regulatory bodies as well.

labcomputer 6y ago

I don't think OP's point was that Europe should prevent US companies from acquiring European tech firms via, e.g., legislation. Rather, that Europeans should place more value on those companies--and either: for competing European firms to outbid US acquisition attempts; or for the owners to not sell them when the offers are too low. One of the major challenges is "synergies" (gak!). Acquiring, say, ARM adds much more value to a company like Apple or nVidia than it does to SAP or Spotify. There's no way around the fact that right now American tech companies can afford to outbid European ones for ARM because ARM adds more value to American companies.

michaelcampbell 6y ago

> If the Europeans stop the US from acquiring companies there, You seem to imply here that the US acquired this company against the will of the seller, which I don't think the parent thread was getting at (nor is true, as far as I know).

baybal2 6y ago

> We let Germany buy one of the most important companies on the planet in Monsanto. I consider Monsanto to be a national security level company, we should have never let it go. Seed & AG tech is critical for the coming century and Monsanto is one of the very few global giants. Many things around have "global importance," and it is long past the time for any modern, globalised economy to undo that. If China wanted to f__k up the West economically on the supply chain side, they have far, far, far more options to do so than the other way around, and this is not limited by companies on the extremes of labour intensity scale. They are plenty of both low, and high tech companies which are one and only in the world in China. And so can many countries with industrial economies, not event necessarily large one. Take Thailand for example, and how they gave a fright of a lifetime to Internet companies with a single phrase "It may take at least a few years before the world can make new hard drives." Or Taiwan, a Microchip embargo today from them may well be a worse thing than an oil embargo of 1970s to a modern economy. Japan, and Korea both have a deadgrip on high material science products, and not so high as well. Both have giants which control chemicals used in 90%+ of all synthetic fabrics. Life without synthetic fabrics today will not be fun to anybody. India has a generic drugs supremacy, and is relied upon by much of the world other than the West for just any drugs. The one and only in the world top tier substrate plant went up in flames in China week ago. All major chip vendors been using their substrate for the package for a few years. If you see a chip with HBM memory, or any model CPU, it's their substrate which is used. On the other end of high techness scale, China has 90%+ of global market for such essential industrial goods as screws, nuts, and bolts. Neither of these examples avail to being easily substituted, and I can come with many more.