Back in Blighty
Arrived in the UK to find the sun shining and the land green. While I’m here, I thought I’d do an occasional series of UK factoids, for the edification of my readers outside the UK (and some in it). These are from yesterday’s BBC business report.
UK factoid 1: 27 degrees Celsius in London yesterday. No business reason for that; I just wanted my Antipodean friends to know, as winter starts to loom large.
UK factoid 2: More than half of the companies in the FTSE 100 (more accurately the FTSE 101) are non-UK companies.
UK factoid 3: 12% of the companies in the FTSE 100 are non-oil mining, yet mining makes up only a tiny fraction of the UK’s economy.
The primary exchange of choice for major non-US companies is now London. Why? The general consensus of the discussions I’ve heard since arriving:
- A desire for global investor credibility, by having to comply with the UK’s stringent corporate governance regime.
- A market more friendly to non-domestic stocks.
- The US exchanges, by contrast, are parochial, with stifling yet ineffective regulation.
- The FTSE 100 is not an indicator of the UK economy anymore, unlike the Dow still is an indicator of the US.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Jim, very interesting last few posts - Russia, UK facts, etc. And useful information for the global profession. Keep it up (whilst sunning yourself & dreaming of a kiwi winter). Glad the blog is now secure
May 20th, 2008 at 1:33 am
Thanks for the temperature heads-up, Jim, especially as I saw 8°C on the Mercury one day here. Hope all is well there.