Britain on sale? Maybe we just stopped buying ourselves
The Week's business pages recently asked whether Britain can stop the rot, as yet another batch of UK companies gets snapped up by overseas buyers. The emotional hook is Colman's mustard, a quintessentially English product being cut loose as Unilever merges its food arm with American spice giant McCormick.
Beyond the nostalgia, the numbers are big: UK takeovers have passed $100bn this year, with Schroders among the names leaving the FTSE, new listings have dried up, and Aim, London's junior market, is in a genuine existential crisis. Suggested fixes range from scrapping stamp duty on shares to doubling what non-executive directors get paid.
The Colman's story isn't quite what it seems
Start with the mustard. Colman's is being sold off to ease competition concerns, because McCormick already owns French's. It isn't being carted off to America; it's being put up for sale separately, and could quite easily end up with a British owner.
The Unilever deal itself is also odd to describe as a straightforward foreign takeover, given that Unilever and its shareholders will end up holding around 65% of the combined business. What really changes is where the company is run from and listed. That matters, but it's a different problem.
And the sentimental loss, if we're honest, happened years ago. Unilever, a London-listed company, closed Colman's historic Norwich factory in 2019. No American required.
A premium is a verdict
The more serious point is price. According to AJ Bell, bidders this year have been paying an average premium of around 45% over undisturbed share prices, with foreign buyers accounting for about 86% of deal value. City AM, reporting PwC figures, says the value of UK deals more than doubled to £124bn in the first half of 2026, even as the number of deals fell.
When someone offers 45% above the market price and shareholders happily accept, that isn't a raid, it's a correction. It tells you London has been pricing British companies too cheaply for years, and buyers have noticed.
Who stopped buying?
So why are they so cheap? Largely because the natural buyers of UK shares – British pension funds, insurers and savers – spent two decades moving their money elsewhere. Years of outflows from UK equity funds have left prices depressed, and when domestic investors don't want to own domestic companies, foreign investors eventually spot the bargain.
Seen that way, the idea that Britain is flogging off its crown jewels is a bit misleading. The people selling are shareholders, and many of the British ones left the building long ago. The takeover wave is just the final paperwork.
That's also why some of the proposed fixes feel thin. Doubling non-executive pay from £80,000 to £160,000 might attract better board members, but it's hard to see it closing a valuation gap caused by a buyers' strike. Scrapping the 0.5% stamp duty on share purchases would help at the margin, but it won't turn the tide by itself.