By Howard Mustoe for the Telegraph and others for CityAM and for the Economist which are summarised here as it is time that the government woke up to what is happening as outright takeovers and stock market shifts leave floodgates open to new deals. Few companies produce equipment more vital to the national interest than Ultra Electronics.
This article dated 8th July 2022 for the Telegraph by Howard Mustoe follows another article by Howard Mustoe for the Telegraph dated 11th June 2022 entitled “Revealed: the quiet US takeover of Britain's arms industry” which seems to be happening with very little publicity in the media and little interest from the government.
Neither was any interest shown a year ago in the article dated 6th July 2021 by Jack Barnett for CityAM entitled: “Lady Cobham slams break-up of UK aerospace champion” which followed an earlier article by James Warrington for CityAM on the 26th June 2021 entitled “Cobham puts top secret defence rival Ultra Electronics in its sights”.
In addition to make matters worse there has been a long-running discussion about the future of Arm with the latest article from the Economist dated 23rd June 2022 entitled “Why everyone wants Arm” which began with these words: “The British chip designer’s modest size belies its central role in the digital revolution”.
Tech giants, governments, trustbusters, investors: all eyes are on the much-anticipated stockmarket listing of Arm. Despite the recent rout in tech stocks, SoftBank, the Japanese group that paid $32bn for the British chip designer in 2016, still plans to refloat its shares by next March.
Here are links to pdf files for all of the above articles:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/07/08/how-britain-sold-defence-industry-highest-us-bidder/
Ultra Electronic's sonar technology arms Royal Navy submarines Credit: Troy GB images / Alamy Stock Photo
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