Written question asked by Barry Sheerman (Labour) on Tuesday, 30 November 1999, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 7 December 1999. It was answered by Andrew Smith (Labour) on Tuesday, 7 December 1999 on behalf of the Office for National Statistics.

Treasury;Office for National Statistics

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, how many public limited companies in the UK have been taken over by companies based in Germany in each of the last three years. - Inc table and text of letter from John Kidgell of the Office for National Statistics.

Answer: Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many public limited companies in the UK have been taken over by companies based in Germany in each of the last three years. [101360] Mr. Andrew Smith: I have been asked to reply. The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Director of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to reply. Letter from John Kidgell to Mr. Barry Sheerman, dated 7 December 1999: The Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has been asked to reply to your question on the number of public limited companies in the UK that have been taken over by companies based in Germany over the last three years. I am replying in Dr Holt's absence. The ONS extracts information about acquisitions and mergers from detailed scanning of specialist journals and the financial press. We therefore tend to identify only the larger and/or more newsworthy acquisitions. The figures below may therefore understate the scale of German acquisitions of UK companies. _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Year Number of British Companies taken over 1997 5 1998 1 1999 first three quarters only 4 _________________________________________________________________________________________________.

Secondary information