Why UK firms should start buying French companies

The French are on a buying spree, snapping up British companies. We should turn the tables, says Matthew Lynn, and start buying French companies. Here, he outlines some potentially attractive-looking deals.

Fashion model
Hermès: perhaps Boohoo should get in on the action
(Image credit: © Victor Virgile/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

At the rate French investors are moving into the UK, Eurostar will soon have to increase the number of its trains between London and Paris.

Last week, Schneider Electrical agreed to buy Cambridge-based industrial software company Aveva, one of the few technology companies left in the FTSE, for £9.5bn. It remains to be seen whether the deal completes, as a number of Aveva’s largest shareholders want to hold out for more money. But if it does, it will be just one of a whole series of French moves into the British market.

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Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.