The weak pound has prompted a rash of takeovers of UK companies. Here’s why this is a problem

Sterling investors need high-quality sterling assets but while billions of pounds worth of UK companies have been taken off the London Stock Exchange, they are not being replaced through IPOs, writes James Moore

Stripped of its finest? The City of London is witnessing a wave of foreign takeovers (PA)

Every time the pound wobbles, we see a similar story emerging: overseas predators are trawling the UK markets in search of cheapie acquisitions. The prevailing political and economic orthodoxy in Britain is that the nation benefits from its open markets.

The fact that (almost) any company can be plucked off the UK market by any bidder is to be welcomed! We wouldn’t want to be France, which once infamously declared yoghurt to be of strategic national importance to frustrate a takeover of Danone by Pepsi under the then EU rules, now would we?

Except that maybe the French had – has – a point. This was rather underlined when Kraft Foods, now Mondelez, gobbled up Cadbury and promptly broke commitments it made in the run-up to the takeover. It also gutted the head office. And there’s another problem: don’t UK investors lose out when quality companies come off the board by dint of the pound finding itself in a slough of despondency?