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The UK government should buy back ARM, it’s a strategic national asset, as is IMG.

WJW 6y ago
It's not really "buy back" if you never owned the company in the first place though. In any case that is not really the way western governments handle strategic companies. The US government is not acquiring Intel or Lockheed any time soon, they just limit where it can export their products to.
- jayflux 6y ago
  > The US government is not acquiring Intel or Lockheed any time soon Well that's because the US government aren't worried about Intel being acquired by anyone else outside of the US anytime soon. Secondly, there's enough competition in the valley that even losing Intel wouldn't be a disaster for the US. The 2 situations aren't really the same.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    Sure, but there are other, much more politically tenable ways to keep Intel under US ownership than nationalizing the company.
- guerrilla 6y ago
  > In any case that is not really the way western governments handle strategic companies. Except for in Scandinavia where that is how they do (more so in the past than now.)
LatteLazy 6y ago
The UK govt is made up of the people too stupid to refuse the job after the brexit vote. Their strategy is to hold on really tight, do nothing and hope their problems go away while awarding their friends massive no bid government contracts to do nothing. Im not just bring pejorative, come and take a look. The first thing PM did after the vote was resign. Theresa May took over and couldn't make it work. Now we have BoJo the Clown and he won because the oppositions best candidate was all but a communist who wanted to shut down most of the banks and all go back working in factories. BoJo's never had any strategy beyond opportunistism. That won't really work in this circumstance. Except that the sale could probably be approved if ARM spent £100m on "consulting" from a tory donor?
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  'a communist who wanted to shut down most of the banks and all go back working in factories' That sounds like its straight from the Daily Mail, quite unfair summary. In terms of economic damage, BoJo is certainly giving him a run for his money Back to the topic at hand: British state appear very reluctant to interfere with 'free market', significantly more so that the US government. I don't feel donation would be neccessary
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    Don't get me wrong, Bojo is a turd and Corbyn at least had his heart in the right place (though that was was about 1952). He did clearly and repeatedly say he wanted to massively reduce financial services (where I work) and get people like me into factories to make stuff (I like a cushie office thanks, I don't want to work on a production line) though. I'd go further than you: the state won't interfere in the free market UNLESS they have a private interests (wealthy donors, personal fortunes etc) to protect. Its survival of the fittest for most of us. I'm jot quite sure what you mean by your last sentence? Donation? Sorry if I'm being thick.
Rochus 6y ago
That would then be nationalization and thus the opposite of the course that Thatcher had initiated. We are currently seeing such tendencies with the British Railways, but this is likely to remain the exception.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  They seem to be changing their position on this: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jul/03/uk-buys-stake-bankrupt-oneweb-satellite-rival-eu-galileo-system https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jul/03/uk-buys-sta...
  - Rochus 6y ago
    Interesting, thanks. But I would consider the satellite system also a special case like the railway system. They're talking about “sovereign global satellite system” and “strategic opportunities across a wide range of other applications”. I'm not sure whether one can derive a rule from it.
Lio 6y ago
I don’t see this as likely. The current Conservative government have large factions that are ideologically opposed to state interference in the free market. Historically they’ve preferred to promote a free market for foreign companies even at the expense of local firms. For example, this has happened in 80s and 90s when the UK had a lead in optical telecommunications and the Conservative government locked BT out of the cable TV market in favour of foreign competitors NTL and Telewest. At the time these cable companies were using old style coax and wouldn’t have been able to compete against BT using state of the art optic fibre that only BT had.
mirekrusin 6y ago
With savings from brexit I'm guessing?

WJW 6y ago

It's not really "buy back" if you never owned the company in the first place though. In any case that is not really the way western governments handle strategic companies. The US government is not acquiring Intel or Lockheed any time soon, they just limit where it can export their products to.

jayflux 6y ago
> The US government is not acquiring Intel or Lockheed any time soon Well that's because the US government aren't worried about Intel being acquired by anyone else outside of the US anytime soon. Secondly, there's enough competition in the valley that even losing Intel wouldn't be a disaster for the US. The 2 situations aren't really the same.
- kelnos 6y ago
  Sure, but there are other, much more politically tenable ways to keep Intel under US ownership than nationalizing the company.
guerrilla 6y ago
> In any case that is not really the way western governments handle strategic companies. Except for in Scandinavia where that is how they do (more so in the past than now.)

LatteLazy 6y ago

The UK govt is made up of the people too stupid to refuse the job after the brexit vote. Their strategy is to hold on really tight, do nothing and hope their problems go away while awarding their friends massive no bid government contracts to do nothing. Im not just bring pejorative, come and take a look. The first thing PM did after the vote was resign. Theresa May took over and couldn't make it work. Now we have BoJo the Clown and he won because the oppositions best candidate was all but a communist who wanted to shut down most of the banks and all go back working in factories. BoJo's never had any strategy beyond opportunistism. That won't really work in this circumstance. Except that the sale could probably be approved if ARM spent £100m on "consulting" from a tory donor?

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
'a communist who wanted to shut down most of the banks and all go back working in factories' That sounds like its straight from the Daily Mail, quite unfair summary. In terms of economic damage, BoJo is certainly giving him a run for his money Back to the topic at hand: British state appear very reluctant to interfere with 'free market', significantly more so that the US government. I don't feel donation would be neccessary
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  Don't get me wrong, Bojo is a turd and Corbyn at least had his heart in the right place (though that was was about 1952). He did clearly and repeatedly say he wanted to massively reduce financial services (where I work) and get people like me into factories to make stuff (I like a cushie office thanks, I don't want to work on a production line) though. I'd go further than you: the state won't interfere in the free market UNLESS they have a private interests (wealthy donors, personal fortunes etc) to protect. Its survival of the fittest for most of us. I'm jot quite sure what you mean by your last sentence? Donation? Sorry if I'm being thick.

Rochus 6y ago

That would then be nationalization and thus the opposite of the course that Thatcher had initiated. We are currently seeing such tendencies with the British Railways, but this is likely to remain the exception.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
They seem to be changing their position on this: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jul/03/uk-buys-stake-bankrupt-oneweb-satellite-rival-eu-galileo-system https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jul/03/uk-buys-sta...
- Rochus 6y ago
  Interesting, thanks. But I would consider the satellite system also a special case like the railway system. They're talking about “sovereign global satellite system” and “strategic opportunities across a wide range of other applications”. I'm not sure whether one can derive a rule from it.

Lio 6y ago

I don’t see this as likely. The current Conservative government have large factions that are ideologically opposed to state interference in the free market. Historically they’ve preferred to promote a free market for foreign companies even at the expense of local firms. For example, this has happened in 80s and 90s when the UK had a lead in optical telecommunications and the Conservative government locked BT out of the cable TV market in favour of foreign competitors NTL and Telewest. At the time these cable companies were using old style coax and wouldn’t have been able to compete against BT using state of the art optic fibre that only BT had.

mirekrusin 6y ago

With savings from brexit I'm guessing?