I seem to have spent my whole life as an analyst writing reports of how UK tech companies have been acquired by overseas companies. It is remarkable how many of those acquisitions have been by the French – starting indeed with the company I worked for in the 60s,70s and 80s, Hoskyns, acquired by Capgemini. To that you can add CAP acquired by Sema and a whole long list of UK companies acquired and now operating in the UK as Atos, Steria, Sopra etc. I wouldn’t mind but it hardly ever happens the other way around. Apart from the French, we’ve lost Logica, Misys and Autonomy too in the last few years to the 'North Americans'.
Today is therefore another sad day as the UK’s Invensys agrees a £3.4b takeover deal with French Schneider Electric. Invensys is basically an engineering company but it also produces software to run power stations, oil refineries and chemical plants. Invensys had revenues of £1.8b in the year to 31st May 13. Invensys sold its rail signalling division to German Siemens in Nov 12. As Schneider aims to take out €140m in efficiency savings, many UK workers will be wondering what the future holds.
One less quoted UK tech company too. One less reason for analysts to bother to cover UK tech. One less reason to IPO in the UK. One day we must reverse this…